LATHROP — After staging a thunderous comeback in Wednesday’s CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship game against Lincoln, the Hughson High baseball program experienced the agony of another late-season heartbreak following the heroics of Dylan Knell.
Facing right-hander Bryce McDaniel with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning and the game tied at five, Knell blasted a towering fly ball over the left field fence of Islanders Field in Lathrop for a solo home run that proved to be the ultimate difference, as it lifted the Fighting Zebras to a 6-5 victory and earned them the coveted championship blue banner.
After a 27-7 season and years of fielding strong teams , the Huskies remain without a section title. In their four previous appearances in the final, the Huskies lost 6-1 to Vanden (D-3) in 1981, 8-3 to Escalon (D-3) in 1991, 8-1 to Central Catholic (D-5) in 2008, and 3-1 to Bradshaw Christian (D-5) in 2022. After reaching the finals three years ago, they saw its 2023 and 2024 seasons end with semifinal losses to Sutter.
“I told the guys, a mistake for them to make right now is to concentrate on what we failed to do, which was win a championship, and focusing on that instead of what they accomplished this year,” said head coach Charly Garza postgame. “It’s rough, of course, but this shouldn’t overshadow the season these young men put together.”
The offensive prowess that the No. 2 Huskies have become known for (.373 batting average and 303 total runs as a team) was on full display Wednesday, particularly in the fourth inning, where they scored three runs to tie the game at five with the top-seeded Zebras.
Off Lincoln ace Jackson Cook, the Huskies saw their first three batters reach base — Carlos Guizar and Lawson Aviles each had singles and McDaniel drew a walk — setting the table for junior Benji Ocegueda’s bases-loaded walk. Senior Max Mankins followed with an RBI groundout before Ocegueda scored on a wild pitch.
After surrendering a leadoff single in the fifth frame, McDaniel set down the next five Zebras he faced before Knell stepped up to the plate and hit his go-ahead shot. McDaniel, a junior, put an end to the inning with a groundout. In their last chance at the plate, Guizar and McDaniel roped consecutive two-out singles, but reliever Landyn Plaut caught Aviles looking to put a cap on the game and Hughson’s season.
Of the six runs scored on McDaniel over his six innings, only two were earned.
After senior third baseman Andrew Fisher gave the Huskies an early lead with a two-out, two-run double in the third inning, the Zebras quickly responded with Aiden Maul tagging an RBI single up the middle and coming around to score when Mankins, camped in right field and fighting the sun, saw a fly ball off the bat of Adriano Montes pop out of his glove. The next batter, Eli Duff, made them pay immediately, blasting the very next pitch offered by McDaniel into the grass area beyond the left field fence for a three-run home run to put the Zebras ahead, 5-2.
As the Hughson offense battled back, junior center fielder Isaac Lupercio made a pair of diving catches with runners in scoring position to keep the game tied.
His first acrobatic catch came in the fourth inning, when McDaniel hit a batter and gave up a walk with two outs. Maul then blasted a towering shot to deep center field, but the speedy Lupercio, tumbling backwards, snagged the ball as he fell to the ground.
McDaniel gave up a leadoff single in the fifth inning and allowed the runner to advance on a walk before Mankins made a tumbling catch on a shallow fly ball to right field off the bat Montes. Two batters later, another blooper was falling in between Lupercio, shortstop Beau Blake and second baseman Lawson Aviles in shallow center, but Lupercio called his teammates off and made the catch as he fell forward.
“I've coached nine years, and I have not seen an outfielder have a game like that,” Garza said. “He made all those plays in one game, and most times you’re lucky if you get just one in an entire season. Isaac’s play in center field today absolutely kept us in the game.
“He’s matured greatly this year. Early in the season, I don't know if he would have made those plays because he would carry his at-bats out on the field, but he's matured a lot. So he stepped up and kept us in it. This game could have been worse without his play out there.”
Garza said he has seen similar maturity in each of his players, including the eight seniors who walked off the diamond for the last time wearing the black and yellow of Hughson High School.
“They've grown and matured a lot… There's a lot of young men over there that have grown mentally, emotionally, spiritually, just beyond the physical play that you could see. I mean, the numbers they put up are crazy, but to me, I'm really proud of the way each of them, in their own way, have come as a person. Those character traits carry over to college and life. All of this carries over, so I’m really, really proud of them.”
