The Oakdale Mustang varsity baseball team scratched out a 6-5 last inning win over the visiting Kimball Jaguars in the opening game of the 2022 Valley Oak League campaign on Tuesday, March 15 at the Mustang baseball venue. Long Beach State bound pitcher, Nate Criswell, started for the Mustangs and got into trouble right away hitting the leadoff hitter, throwing wide on a pickoff move to advance the runner to second base, walking the second batter, and committing an error against the third hitter. Following another error and a triple by Jaguar second baseman Dylan Vanderhave, the Jaguars ended their half of the first inning with a 4-0 lead.
The Mustangs battled back to halve the score at 4-2 at the end of their half of the first inning following a base hit by John Wylie (1-3 with a walk and 2 runs scored), a walk to Landon Nunes (2-4, with a walk and was hit by a pitch), an RBI single by catcher Preston Vierra (1-4) and a controversial RBI fielder's choice by Alex Jones. Initially, it appeared that the Jaguars had completed a double play on a grounder to short by Jones, but the home plate umpire overruled the base umpire's call at first making Jones safe and allowing Nunes to score.
After loading the bases with a walk, a single and a hit batsman to start the Jaguar second inning, Criswell pitched out of the jam with a strike out followed by a perfectly executed 1-2-3 double play. Jaguar pitcher Dylan Anderson tapped a pitch back to Criswell who threw to catcher Preston Vierra for a force out. Vierra, in turn, threw to first baseman Donovan Johnson for the final out of the inning. In fact, following the first inning, Criswell did not surrender another run and only gave up 2 hits on the day as he got sharper as the game progressed. The senior walked 5, hit two batsmen and struck out 8.
The Mustangs slowly fought back against Kimball. In the third stanza Nunes singled and then stole second. With two outs, Jones reached safely on a third strike passed ball. Second baseman Tate Cassaretto followed with a clutch RBI single scoring Nunes to narrow the Jaguar lead to 4-3. The score remained that way until the top of the sixth inning. Head Coach Joey Machado replaced Criswell with senior A. J. Sapwell, who gave up a leadoff single to Jaden Pelach. Pelach stole second and then third and scored on an infield out, extending the Jaguar lead to 5-3.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, with two outs, Oakdale came alive. Wylie walked and then Nunes hit a towering double off of the right center field fence, scoring the swift Wylie from first. First baseman Johnson followed with an RBI single scoring Nunes to knot the score at 5 apiece. After Sapwell pitched a perfect top of the seventh, the Mustangs played the quintessential "small ball" in the bottom of the final stanza to get the win. Jones was hit by relief pitcher Isaiah Velasquez to lead off the inning. Casaretto legged out a bunt, as did Criswell, to load the bases. Following a strikeout, junior third baseman Jace Grandstaff tapped the ball in front of the plate. Velasquez was unable to make a play and Jones raced across the plate to earn the victory. For the game, the Mustangs scored 6 runs on 9 hits in contrast to the 5 runs on 3 hits recorded by the Jaguars.
Senior pitcher John Wylie fired a 5-inning perfect game as the varsity baseball team overwhelmed the Jaguars to sweep the two game, home-and-home series in Tracy on Thursday, March 17. Wylie recorded 15 consecutive outs on just 49 pitches in dominating the home team Jaguars. Offensively, Criswell hit a massive grand slam home run. Additionally Sapwell and Gannon Camp each collected a double, while Wylie went 2 for 4 from the plate. Cassaretto went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs, Nunes went 1 for 2 with an RBI, Vierra went 1 for 3 with 2 RBI and Jones went 2 for 2 with an RBI. The umpires invoked the 10-run-lead mercy rule at the end of the fifth inning and the Mustangs walked away with the win to keep their VOL record perfect at 2-0.
GOLF
Team scores for the VOL Meet #1 held at Oakdale Golf and Country Club were:
1st-Oakdale – 442; 2nd-Kimball – 454; 3rd-East Union – 492; 4th-Manteca – 535; 5th-Central Catholic – 575; 6th-Sierra – 615; 7th-Weston Ranch - NS (No Team Score only 3 players).
“We had five of the top eight scores for the entire league,” noted Oakdale coach Lee McGhee. “Freshman Nolan Harris was the overall winner of the tournament with the lowest score on the day, 76. Junior Cooper Pitney followed close behind in third place overall with a score of 83.”
McGhee added that both of those players are first year participants with OHS Golf but have played numerous events in junior golf.
“They will help lead our team as we move forward and keep working to lower our individual and team scores for league play,” said the coach. “We then had Grant Weber (senior) at 92, Robert Bordona (freshman) with 93, Carson Middaugh (junior) scored 98 and our final score was Devyn Scott (senior) with a 105.”
The Mustang golfers have three more League Tournaments, at Weston Ranch, Kimball and Manteca, followed by the VOL Championships at Central Catholic-Creekside Golf Course.
“All of those will be used to decide a League Champion and which teams move on to playoffs,” McGhee explained.
SOFTBALL
Suffering their first loss of the season, Oakdale’s varsity softball girls traveled to Escalon on March 16, with the host Lady Cougars getting a revenge win for an earlier season loss to Oakdale in tournament play. The game went into extra innings, with the host team edging out Oakdale by a 7-6 final, scoring a run in the bottom of the eighth inning for the walk off victory. Kylie Valente drove in a pair of runs and Delainey Everett struck out 14 for Oakdale.
It was a short blip on the radar though, as Oakdale bounced back with a 13-5 thumping of Calaveras on Friday, March 18 in Oakdale.
A five-run third helped push the host team into the lead and they had 11 hits on the day as well. Danny Romo and Raegen Everett each had three runs batted in and Everett also was on the mound, where she struck out 12 Calaveras hitters on the afternoon.
Results for swimming, track and field, and boys tennis were not available at press time.

