Hughson High baseball coach Charly Garza has described his team as an-around great group of young men. The group has had a string of all-around great performances since the start of the season, the latest being a 15-1 win over Modesto Christian on Tuesday afternoon.
The win, which was the team’s fifth by double-digits, improved the Huskies to 9-1 on the season and to 3-0 in Trans-Valley League competition.
While the offense brought the fireworks with 12 hits, Hughson starting pitcher Paul Wagner silenced opposing bats, tossing five two-hit, one run innings while collecting 11 strikeouts. The two hits and the run came in the fifth and final inning after Wagner was perfect for the first 4 1/3 frames.
Wagner, a senior, features a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, curveball and changeup. All seemed effective Tuesday, but the curve especially stood out, as he threw it for strike three in more than half of his punchouts. In two instances, opposing hitters fell to the floor after whiffing on it.
“The curveball has been pretty effective. That's my go-to two-strike pitch,” Wagner explained.
A performance like that is impressive as is, but perhaps more so considering Wagner has predominantly pitched out of the bullpen to start the season,
“Paul is actually somebody we’re trying to find innings for to get him some more work,” Garza said.
Wagner isn’t worried about where or when he pitches, saying “I’m just her to help the team win however I can.”
As Wagner was getting the Crusaders off balance, the one player who didn’t have trouble with off-speed pitching was Hughson infielder Caleb Wilson, who smacked a pair of two-run home runs. In the third inning against starting pitcher Tyson Hunt, he pulled the offering over the left field fence to extend Hughson’s lead to 10-0. He made it 14-0 in the fourth inning off reliever Hayden Garcia when he slapped a ball over the right field fence. Both pitches were anything but blazing fastballs, which caught the attention of Garza.
“It's hard to hit a ball with the velocity that was coming at him,” Garza said. “When he smashed one to left center and then goes to the opposite field, that's just a testament to him… Caleb is one of the most impressive kids on our team because he makes adjustments all the time.”
“I was trying to get the bat on the ball,” Wilson said. “I usually look for a fastball and react to whatever else he throws, so that’s my approach.”
Wilson was just one of six batters in the Hughson lineup that logged multiple base hits Tuesday. The others were Carlos Guizar, Bryce McDaniel, J.C. Lupercio, Max Mankins, Blaine Fusi and Wagner.
The Huskies will take on the Crusaders again tomorrow at 4 p.m. in Modesto as the journey to make it a third straight trip to the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs.
“I'm just excited because we have the maturity… The kids have bought into the philosophy of, it doesn't matter who the opponent is,” Garza said. “We have a standard of baseball that gives ourselves the best chance to be successful on the scoreboard. They bought into that, whether it’s the communication or the energy in the dugout. So I'm just excited for these kids to play so that they can keep seeing the results of the trust they have with each other and the time that they're putting in.”