Mountain Vista senior righthander Anthony Urbani was in command the entire game and didn’t let a few base runners bother him.
Urbani pitched a four-hit shutout as Vista defeated Douglas County, 4-0, in a Continental League baseball game on April 20 at Douglas County.
“I had a good outing,” said Urbani. “I had really good defense behind me and the best catcher in the state (Tucker Moore). That really helped me out.”
Urbani pitched all seven innings and limited the Huskies to two hits until the seventh when they got two more and left the bases loaded. Urbani stuck out nine batters and walked two.
Douglas County had runners on second and third in the second inning but Urbani fanned two hitters to silence the threat. In the seventh, the Huskies collected two singles and a walk to load the bases with two outs but Urbani ended the game and preserved the shutout by inducing a ground ball out.
“I just tried to make some good pitches and let them put it in play and it ended up working out for me,” said Urbani. “Fast balls away and my curve ball were on. I was getting a little tired in the seventh.
“We’re a great team and we play as a team. Hopefully we can go far this year. We’ve had three big games in a row against Valor, Heritage and Douglas County. We’ll move on to the next and hopefully come out on top.”
Vista coach Ron Quintana praised Urbani.
“He was on fire,” he said. “He had all three pitches working and worked out of a couple jams as well. We were in the huddle and never got too excited or down. Everybody did their jobs.”
Tyler Mejia and Blake Young each went 2-for-3 for Vista. Zeke Borel and Noah Baker had runs batted in. Vistahad six stolen bases with Mejia and David Helfant each getting two.
Vista, ranked third in the state in the Class 5A CHSAANow.com poll, improved to 14-1 overall with the win over the Huskies and are 1-0 in the league.
Fourth-ranked Douglas County fell to 10-2 overall and 0-1 in the league.
The Huskies threw two wild pitches, walked eight batters and committed three errors which helped Vista. Douglas County pitchers Max Stanley and Hunter Gotschall combined to strike out 16 batters.
“Mountain Vista is too good of a team to make mistakes,” said Huskies coach Craig Gienger. “We struck out 16 of their guys. If you had told me that we struck out 16 of their guys and lost, I would have said no way.
“They did a good job of running the bases and did a good job of taking advantage of mistakes. That was the difference. I was a little disappointed with our at-bats especially throughout the middle innings and late in the game. Credit to them and the guy on the mound. We had a chance in the seventh with the bases loaded but credit goes to them. They played a great game.”
Gotschall, Eli Athanas, Tyler Stonebraker and Hayden Osborn had the Douglas County hits.