Lefty shines as Green Valley wins playoff baseball opener — PHOTOS
Green Valley defeated Shadow Ridge on the road Monday thanks to dominant pitching and clutch hitting.
The Gators, the fourth seed from the Mountain League, won their first game of the 5A Southern Region playoffs 9-2 and will face Palo Verde in the winner’s bracket game at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
The Mustangs, the top seed from the Desert League, will host Foothill at 4 p.m. Tuesday in an elimination game that’s also a rematch of last year’s 4A title match.
Green Valley (14-17) knew who it needed to call on to get the job done Monday: Lefty Jared Orabuena.
The senior was a force to be reckoned with against Shadow Ridge (16-15). He earned the win after surrendering two hits and no earned runs while striking out seven in five innings.
“He’s been one of our best arms and when it’s crunch time we’ve decided to go with him,” Gators coach Manny Llamas Jr. said.
Orabuena led Green Valley in ERA and strikeouts in the regular season. He showed he could thrive in the playoffs as well.
“My curveball started off a little rough. But as the game went on, I started to get a feel for it and it worked out pretty well,” Orabuena said. “I just had to dig deep and my teammates were backing me up the whole time in the dugout. Every time I came back, they were hyping me up, cheering me up and telling me to keep going.”
The Gators gave Orabuena run support early.
Senior Benjamin Byington hit a leadoff single and junior Caden Kirby followed with a two-run home run in the top of the first inning.
“First pitch he threw me was a fastball to my head. Second pitch was a slider that was in front of the plate. He doubled up on it and I just caught it out in front and let it fly,” Kirby said.
The Mustangs answered back in the bottom half of the first. A single by senior Christian Wilkes scored sophomore Evan Noble to cut Shadow Ridge’s deficit to 2-1.
Green Valley struck again in the top of the fourth. Junior TJ Shaw Jr. singled to left field off a fastball from senior Dylan Franco to score Byington and sophomore Isaiah Alba.
“They had a really good pitcher on the mound. Franco threw hard. I was just trying to see the fastball and attack early,” Shaw said. “I want to give props to my teammates for getting on him early so I could drive them in.”
The Mustangs collected their second and last run of the game in the fifth inning after a fielder’s choice and throwing error scored senior Brock Morrow.
The Gators added some insurance runs in the top of the seventh courtesy of singles to the outfield by Alba, Byington and Shaw.
“For us, it’s just taking it one pitch at a time and making sure we can see the baseball up. We don’t want to switch our approach,” Llamas said. “We want to keep the baseball in the big part of the yard and we did a good job of that on the defensive side today.”
Contact Jacob Powers at jpowers@reviewjournal.com. Follow@jaypowers__ on X.
