Baseball: Pluschkell's Walk-Off Single Gives Dons 3-2 Win

Chances are, Amador Valley's Tommy Pluschkell will always remember Saturday as the day he hit a walk-off single to win a baseball game at the Oakland Coliseum.

It was nearly something much less memorable.

With Brian Hamm on third and Chris Keck on first and the Dons trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, Pluschkell was originally called on to bunt during a suicide-squeeze play. He missed and Hamm was caught in a rundown.

However, Hamm drew two throws before an error on the third allowed him to slide home safely and tie the game at 2-2.

"Oh man, I owe him," Pluschkell said. "He's saved me so many times."

Off the hook for missing the squeezing attempt, Pluschkell calmly lined a single to center to score Keck from third and the Dons defeated San Ramon Valley 3-2.

"I thought I was going to have a chance to win the game (when the inning started)," he said. "This was unreal."

The win pulls Amador (17-3, 8-2 EBAL) back into a first-place tie with rival Foothill, which beat California 9-1 on Friday.

"Coach (Lou Cesario) kept telling us to be focused on the game, not that we were playing in a major league stadium," Pluschkell said. "It was an important game."

It was also the second time this year the Dons trailed San Ramon going into the seventh inning only to win.

"If you're going to win (the EBAL title), you have to get breaks," Cesario said. "We got the breaks today when we needed them … we kind of got lucky. I told the team playing in the Coliseum will be a great experience, but it'd be better if we won."

Amador starter Michael Mallory didn't have his best stuff and after giving up two runs, on four hits and three walks in 2 2/3 innings, he was lifted for Alex Osterholt, who went the rest of the way without allowing a hit.

"Osterholt did a great job keeping us in the game," Cesario said.

The Dons needed some luck to get on the board off San Ramon starter John Hochstatter in the sixth as well. With two outs and none on, David Johnson hit a pop-up ,which fell for a single. Aaron Hafford followed with a single and Tony Olguin snuck a groundball through the right side of the infield to score Johnson.

It was a tough loss for San Ramon to stomach.

"We had them beat," San Ramon coach Chris deClerq said. "Credit to them for getting it done, but I think we're much better than we played. We out-played them for 12 of the 14 innings and they won both games."

Amador travels to Livermore on Wednesday and hosts De La Salle on Friday before wrapping up the regular season with road games against Granada and Foothill the following week.

———————————————————

Amador Valley 3, San Ramon Valley 2

San Ramon Valley 002 000 — 2 4 2
Amador Valley 000 001 2 — 3 5 1

San Ramon Valley (ab-r-h) — Fishman 4-1-2, Cox 4-0-0, Bo.Geren 3-1-1, Massoni 1-0-0, Quinlan 1-0-0, Bedard 3-0-1, Drobny 3-0-0, Br.Geren 3-0-0, Dutto 3-0-0.
Amador Valley (ab-r-h) — Hamm 2-1-0, Moroney 2-0-0, Keck 2-1-1, Pluschkell 4-0-1, Johnson 2-1-1, Hafford 2-0-1, Olguin 2-0-1, Finn 2-0-0, Petros 3-0-0.
Pitching 
San Ramon Valley — Hochstatter 6 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 H, 3 K; Popovich 0.1 IP, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 H, 2 BB, 0 K.
Amador Valley — Mallory 2.2 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 2 K; Osterholt 4.1 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 H, 0 BB, 1 H.

Batting
2B — Fishman (SRV).

——————————————

EBAL Standings

Amador Valley 8-2

Foothill 8-2

California 6-4

San Ramon Valley 6-4

Granada 5-5

De La Salle 3-7

Livermore 2-8

Monte Vista 2-8