23 May Pittsburg High Baseball Season Ends at the Hands of De La Salle

The Pittsburg High Pirates looked for answers on the mound all game Monday but never seemed to find any.

Story and photos by Joe Porrello

Pittsburg High’s varsity baseball (19-6) season ended Monday in Concord against De La Salle (23-4) in round one of the North Coast Division 1 sectionals.

Both teams’ pitching staffs entered with a collective ERA below 1.95 — 3.50 better than the national average — but faltered to the tune of a 12-5 final. With the lineups having collective batting averages of .315 or above, something had to give.

Eight of nine Spartans registered hits, and in a wave of miscues, five total players were hit by pitches and each squad made a pair of errors.

The Pirates entered having outscored opponents by more than double on average; De La Salle, by about four times. Ranked No. 147 statewide and as a No. 15 tournament seed, the Pirates battled a second-seeded De La Salle team ranked No. 17 in California and No. 84 nationally.

 

After keeping a leadoff Pittsburg walk from scoring, the Spartans got their own leadoff walk across home plate and then some. Along with a pair of singles and doubles, they scored four runs before recording their first out — which did not come until a runner was thrown at home.

The Pirates got another leadoff baserunner in the second on an error, and the next reached on a hit-by-pitch, but De La Salle got out of the jam largely thanks to an eye-catching diving grab in center field.

The Spartans scored three more in the second on doubles by senior Antonio Castro and junior Tyler Spangler. Castro added three runs, two singles, two RBIs, a stolen base and a walk. Spangler also tallied three runs to go with an RBI and finished a home run short of the cycle — not for a lack of power. His nine home runs lead the NCS and he is one shy of tying the school record. 

“If it happens, it happens. I’ve honestly just been trying not to do too much — the home runs will come,” Spangler said.

 

Grounding into two quick outs in the fourth, the Pirates then got walked twice and scored on a throwing error.

Spangler led off the bottom of the fourth with his team-leading fourth triple. He also paces his team in hits (33), tops the East Bay League in runs (30), and fronts the NCSD1 in slugging percentage (.914) and RBIs (35). 

A walk followed before senior Alec Blair hit a three-run home run, putting the Spartans up nine. He scored three runs, amassed a game-high four RBIs, stole a base, drew a walk, was issued an intentional walk, and tallied his team-leading ninth double.

Again taking advantage of two straight walks, the Pirates scored on a sacrifice fly and an RBI double by senior Aaron Del Real in the fifth, making it 10-3. 

De La Salle junior Graham Schlicht was pulled in the inning but still earned his team-leading ninth win despite allowing four walks — after surrendering only six all season in a team-high 58.2 innings pitched. He also gave up two earned runs and struck out just four, contrasting his NCSD1 lead of 80 strikeouts and five total earned runs allowed on the season (0.52 ERA).

“Graham didn’t have his best stuff today, but I think he’ll bounce back,” said Spangler. “The tight strike zone worked in our favor at the plate… but that might have come at the expense of our pitching.”

 

Picking up their starter, the Spartans smacked three straight sixth inning singles to plate a pair and cap their scoring at 12.

Pittsburg, in turn, got two consecutive hits to begin the sixth. Both scored on sacrifice flies — making the score 12-5, where it remained. They became the only team other than Granada to score five or more against De La Salle this season.

“Tip your hat to Pittsburg,” said Spartans 14th-year head coach David Jeans. “They didn’t quit, and they put together some good at-bats.”

Pittsburg head coach Marco Cartegena, in his 10th season, said he expects nothing less.

“We’re not going to crumble,” he said. “We’ve been in this position before.”

 

Del Real had a similar outlook.

“That’s an amazing team over there, but we look forward to playing them and not backing down because that’s what we’re about,” he said.

Following the game, nine Pirates seniors who suited up together for the last time shared hugs and shed tears.

“Almost all nine of them have been starting since their freshman year and you don’t see that a lot,” said Cartegena. “They’re very close, and it sucks that this group is never going to compete together again.”

 

Pirates seniors echoed their coach’s sentiment.

“My emotions are all over the place right now. It sucks to have to go… I love these guys,” said Del Real.

 

“To inspire these guys and have them keep it going means a lot to us seniors,” said Ty Thompson, who had a double, stolen base, walk and two runs. On the season, he led the team in RBIs with 21.

Pittsburg has now been knocked out of the playoffs by De La Salle in their last three head-to-head matchups — the others in 2023 and 2016. Last beating the Spartans in 2008, Pittsburg is 2-8 when facing them over a 20-year span.

De La Salle was on a 12-game winning streak in which they outscored opponents by a combined 115-13 before losing in the East Bay League championship May 15 to Granada, who handed the Spartans their only pair of league losses this season (12-2). 

“Right off the bat, we were locked in today; everybody was ready to make up for that loss,” said Blair.

He leads the East Bay League with a .458 batting average and a .570 on base percentage, along with being ranked by Sports Illustrated as the No. 11 high school baseball prospect in California. Blair will play baseball at Oklahoma University next season — as well as basketball, in which ESPN ranks him the No. 58 recruit in the country. At 6-foot-6, he is one of 18 Spartans over 6 feet tall.

 

Coming in with four straight victories by a combined 60-5, the Pirates salvaged their season after a late lull in which four of their five losses came in a two-week span. They ended with their sixth straight overall winning season, and their second consecutive with 20 wins — after 11 losing seasons in 12 years.

“We came here and were expecting right away to change stuff — we all grew up playing together,” said Del Real. “This legacy we created is all about hard work.”

For De La Salle, it is their ninth straight season with 20 wins — including a 2019 team that reached No. 2 in the nation.

Last year was the Spartans first without an NCS trophy in six seasons and they’re in search of title number 15 since 1984. Pittsburg, conversely, has never won an NCS championship in the league’s 77 years of tournaments.

“We are all very motivated to get back to the NCS championship and win it this time,” said Blair of his team consisting of 16 seniors.

De La Salle will continue their postseason quest at home Friday against No. 7 seed Petaluma (20-6) in the quarterfinals.