It’s been seven years since the Murrieta Mesa baseball program first took the field here in the valley and for six years they have been labeled the underdog, but this year, after a crushing 16-5 victory over Chaparral (7-15, 4-10) Tuesday, May 10, it’s officially the Year of the Ram.
Though they punched their ticket to the postseason four games ago, Murrieta Mesa (21-7, 11-3) needed to find themselves after dropping three straight games over the past week and a half. Vista Murrieta, the defending Southwestern League champs, were the first to take down the red-hot Rams, who had won ten straight games before being downed 3-2 April 28 by the Broncos.
Enter Great Oak, who made things a bit rocky for the Rams taking two games away from them last week, making the Wolfpack the only Southwestern League opponent to win a series against Murrieta Mesa this year. The two wins moved Great Oak (16-13, 9-5) within one game in the standings as the top three teams, including Vista Murrieta, headed into the final week of regular season play.
With two games to go in the regular season, Murrieta Mesa, who was still one game in front, needed two things to happen in order to clinch their first ever Southwestern League Championship title. The Rams needed to either win their last two games outright, or win their first of two final games against Chaparral and hope Murrieta Valley could knock Great Oak back one game as a spoiler, which is exactly what happened Tuesday, May 10.
Murrieta Mesa’s bats caught fire right away as they put three runs on the board in the top of the first inning and never looked back. Chaparral’s Jake Hitch got the Pumas close with a 2-run home run in the bottom of the second, but Rams senior, Brad Prebay, would score in the second inning to put the score at 4-2 as a barrage of hits ensued.
Austen Salcedo tripled in the third, Zac Filos knocked him in, Caiden Matkins doubled to score Filos and the hits just kept coming as the Rams were up 6-5 once the inning was over, though Chaparral did keep the game close early on.
By the end of the fourth inning the score was 9-5 and Murrieta Mesa was not backing down. The Rams would score seven more runs in the next three innings as Kevin Palm, Zac Filos, Tony Carreon and Nate Stillinovich set the table on the mound for the Rams who went with Jesse “Big Country” Robinson and Andrew Dunkel to close out the game, securing the 16-5 victory.
With the win, Murrieta Mesa knew they were in at least a two way tie for the Southwestern League title after the game, but when the news that Murrieta Valley (11-15, 7-7) took out the Wolfpack 5-1 at Great Oak High School, the cheers from the parents, fans, coaches and players on the visitors side at Chaparral could almost be heard throughout the valley!
“I am very happy for the families who have hung in there with Mesa. Everyone in our program helped achieve this in some fashion, especially these boys who have battled many forms of adversity to get here,” says Rams head coach Bryn Wade, who also said the boys know the job is not done when asked about the post season.
Just down the street, Vista Murrieta (19-10, 10-4) picked up their tenth win of the season after defeating Temecula Valley (3-20-1, 1-13) 13-5 at the Golden Bears home field, but even if the Ram’s were to drop their next game to Chaparral and even if Vista Murrieta were to win again, Murrieta Mesa still owns the tie breaker winning two of the three games played over the Broncos this season.
With one final game to go Murrieta Mesa can add their name to the history books by winning the most amount of games by a Southwestern League team ever, prior to the playoffs. Vista Murrieta was 22-6 overall (including the playoffs) in 2011, which is also the year the Broncos had the best Southwestern League record ever, going 13-2 under Coach Kurt Ruth.
CIF-SS playoff parings will be posted Monday, May 16, for all the top teams from the area. Game times for the final league games of the regular season take place Thursday, May 12, with start times of 3:30 p.m. Chaparral will head to Murrieta Mesa, Temecula Valley will be at Vista Murrieta and Great Oak will be on the road at Murrieta Valley.
*Standings and stats provided by MaxPreps and GameChanger.
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