BY TED APODACA: The Pacifica High baseball team was playing solid defense and had steady pitching from junior left hander Nathan Johnson.<\/p>\n

The squad also hitting the ball consistently.<\/p>\n

But leaving 12 runners stranded cost the Mariners the game as they fell to Paramount, 3-2, in a Beach Pit Tournament game on Saturday at Pacifica High.<\/p>\n

The struggles to get a key hit when needed have plagued the Mariners in recent games, but head coach Mike Caira said the team is on the right track.<\/p>\n

“It will come around,” Caira said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BY TED APODACA: The Pacifica High baseball team was playing solid defense and had steady pitching from junior left hander Nathan Johnson.<\/p>\n

The squad also hitting the ball consistently.<\/p>\n

But leaving 12 runners stranded cost the Mariners the game as they fell to Paramount, 3-2, in a Beach Pit Tournament game on Saturday at Pacifica High.<\/p>\n

The struggles to get a key hit when needed have plagued the Mariners in recent games, but head coach Mike Caira said the team is on the right track.<\/p>\n

“It will come around,” Caira said.<\/p>\n

The team is starting five sophomores, so there is an adjustment to varsity level baseball for many of them. The team had also ground out six games in eight days. They scored four runs and eight runs in consecutive wins, before the offense went cold.<\/p>\n

Against Paramount, the Mariners had opportunities in most innings, but could not plate a run through seven innings. Paramount, as well, was scoreless through seven regulation innings. However, in the top of the eighth the Pirates had a lead-off triple that set up a couple of well-executed bunts to take a 2-0 lead. They had a bloop single to add another and take a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

The Mariners had the first two batters go down, but Jackson Fortune was hit by a pitch and Jonathan Garrett reached base on walk to keep the game alive. Shortstop Joseph Ortiz drilled a liner to the right-center field gap for a two-RBI triple. He slid into third as the throw bounced off the third baseman and toward the dugout.<\/p>\n

Ortiz tried to score the tying run, but was thrown out to end the game. In the fifth inning Ortiz and senior Sean Geer led off with back-to-back singles.<\/p>\n

After two pop-ups, junior Dominic Zerillo drew a walk to load the bases. But Paramount got a strikeout to end the threat.<\/p>\n

In the bottom of the sixth, with two out and runners on first and third, the Mariners tried to score Jonathan Garrett from third, by sending Ortiz from first base. But Paramount threw home in time to catch Garrett for the third out. Pacifica will try to regain its spark as league play approaches.<\/p>\n

“These guys are really working hard, we’ll get it going,” Caira said.<\/p>\n

The Mariners continued in the tournament this week and will prepare for Empire League play, which begins April 12 at Valencia, at 3:15 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY TED APODACA: The Pacifica High baseball team was playing solid defense and had steady pitching from junior left hander Nathan Johnson. The squad also hitting the ball consistently. But leaving 12 runners stranded cost the Mariners the game as they fell to Paramount, 3-2, in a Beach Pit Tournament game on Saturday at Pacifica […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3214],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4753,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions\/4753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}