Huntington Beach baseball wins regional title after being 'resurrected'
Huntington Beach baseball coach Benji Medure said he was meeting with his team in his classroom, set to have uniforms handed in, when he received a call inviting the team to compete in the CIF State Southern California Regional Division I playoffs.
Medure, a mathematics teacher on campus, felt it a matter of simple math. Even one more game would be greater than none.
He paused the proceedings and began to pass out paper to vote, but he didn't get far before there was an interruption.
They're like, 'What are you doing?'" Medure said, describing the reaction of the team. "And I said, 'You want to just go show of hands? Yeah?' I said, 'Who wants to do it?' Everybody."
Huntington Beach's fate had appeared sealed after its loss to La Mirada coming out of pool play in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 bracket, but that surprise call gave the Oilers more time together.
It turned into an unforgettable moment.
Two-way star Jared Grindlinger blew a fastball by San Diego Cathedral Catholic's Trey Kotsay, shutting down a late rally by the visitors and securing a 5-3 win for Huntington Beach on Saturday in the regional championship game.
Grindlinger, a Tennessee commit and a top prospect in next month's Major League Baseball draft, jumped into the arms of catcher Jaxon Greer. The Oilers' bench rushed out of the third-base dugout to join the celebration, which ended up in right field.
"These have been my best friends growing up my entire life," Grindlinger said. "So when we got another opportunity, I was like, 'Hell yeah. Let's go.'"
Huntington Beach (25-8-1), the tournament's No. 7 seed, held its team banquet on Friday, second baseman Sol Moriyama said, adding the Oilers were excited about either possible opponent in the regional final.
After beating No. 3-seeded Corona, 11-3, on Thursday, Huntington Beach awaited the winner of No. 5 La Mirada and No. 8 Cathedral Catholic. While a La Mirada win would have put the Oilers on the road in the title game, they would have had another shot against the team that knocked them out of the section playoffs.
Grindlinger, who began the game in left field, lifted the Oilers to a 2-0 lead two batters into the bottom of the first inning. Huntington Beach play-by-play announcer Dominick Lorenz said the home run to right traveled 333 feet.
"[Cathedral Catholic starter Kaden Kuhn] was throwing a really good fastball," Grindlinger said. "It had some good ride on it, and then he hung a changeup. I got it, and I knew it was gone when I hit it."
Duncan McLeod, who went the first two innings as the opener, and Mason Tapia, the winning pitcher, combined to throw six scoreless innings.
Center fielder Elyjah Mason made a couple of key plays defensively. In the third inning, he tracked down a ball in the right-center gap and threw out Alex Harrington, who was trying to stretch the second of his game-high three hits into a double.
"I'm running after the ball, focusing on the ball, making sure I catch it clean and get it in," Mason said. "When I hear, 'Runner,' it's initial reaction, get up and just throw as hard as I can, throw it at the bag, and hope he's out. It was a big play, and it was really crucial for how we played."
Hunter Harrington was representing the tying run in the sixth inning when he sent a fly ball to left. Mason ranged over, but so too did Eddie Lucero, who had just come into the game in left with Grindlinger warming in the bullpen. The outfielders collided, with Lucero bouncing off of Mason, the latter - the taller of the two at 6-foot-3 - holding on for the catch.
"That was [Andy] Pages and Kiké Hernández colliding there, you know, in the World Series," said Medure, referencing the game-saving catch in the ninth inning of Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays. "That's exactly what it looked like to me."
Huntington Beach sent eight batters to the plate in the bottom of the sixth, stretching its advantage to 5-0. Parker Leoff led off with a double, followed by three successive walks. Dane Cunningham's bases-loaded walk forced in a run. Moriyama singled through the right side of the infield to score another, and pinch runner Charlie Henderson rushed home on a wild pitch.
Medure tapped Jared Marchbank in the seventh. He recorded a pair of strikeouts, but with traffic on the base paths, he called for Grindlinger with a save opportunity. The hard-throwing left-hander struck out Joshua Priest, but the game was extended on a passed ball. A wild pitch then moved the tying runs into scoring position for Cathedral Catholic (28-7), but Grindlinger fanned Kotsay on a high fastball.
Huntington Beach won its second regional championship. The Oilers topped JSerra to win the title in 2022.
"It was a second life for us," Moriyama said of getting a chance to play in the regional tournament. "We got resurrected. It was just an opportunity that we couldn't pass up on … I would take that chance 100 out of 100 times."
Medure added he would always take an invite to the tournament "because of this feeling right here."
"I'll never say no because it provides an opportunity for our guys to play with each other," Medure said. "My whole thing is, like, you play baseball to keep playing baseball. You play to move on to the next level and play. If you have an opportunity to play the game that you grew up playing your whole life, in this scenario, you do it.
This story originally appeared in Daily Pilot.
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