The Palo Alto High School baseball team avenged Wednesday’s defeat by beating Mountain View High School, 4-0, today, at Paly.
Senior Ben Sneider pitched a complete game, one-hit shutout to lead the Vikings (10-2-1, 4-1-1) to a league victory over the Spartans (8-7, 3-3) after losing at Mountain View, 7-6, two days ago.
“We wanted to come out today and dominate every facet of the game: pitching, hitting, baserunning and fielding, and I think we did that,” Sneider said.
Junior designated hitter Isaac Feldstein led off the scoring in the second inning with a sacrifice fly, scoring senior outfielder Justin Grey, who had doubled and stolen third.
Junior third baseman Michael Strong hit an RBI single in the fourth inning to extend the Vikings’ lead to 2-0.
In the next inning, senior second baseman Jack Witte reached base on an error and junior outfielder B.J. Boyd sent him home with an RBI single. Boyd and senior outfielder John Dickerson were stranded on second and third to end the inning.
Paly rounded out the scoring in the bottom of the sixth when Feldstein hit an infield check-swing single, Strong sacrificed him to second, and Witte hit a two-out double to score Feldstein.
“I think we did a great job of bouncing back after a tough loss on Wednesday,” Strong said.
Strong also praised Sneider’s dominant performance.
“Ben is a great pitcher and a great leader on this team and it was right for him to be the guy on the mound today,” Strong said.
Sneider felt that he kept the Mountain View hitters uncomfortable throughout the game by varying his pitches.
“Especially early on in the game when I wanted to keep them off balance, I was throwing a lot of curveballs for strikes low and away,” Sneider said. “That set me up for the rest of the game to just pound them in on the hands. When you as a pitcher can make the hitter uncomfortable in the box, you’re doing your job well.”
Strong feels the team still has room for improvement despite the solid performance.
“We hit a lot of fly balls and all week we worked on hitting the ball on the ground,” he said. “But coming out of it with a win was a really positive thing.”
Paly will next play at 7 p.m. Monday at Santa Clara in another league contest.