Manteca's Toby Fox fires a pitch for a strike.

Ike Dodson/Sun Post

SACRAMENTO — Thanks to some costly first-inning errors in the opening round of the Sac-Joaquin Section division IV baseball playoffs, Manteca High’s stellar baseball team came down to the seven, eight and nine holes in the seventh and final inning on Wednesday, May 14, at Dan McAuliffe Memorial Park.

            With the team trailing 5-2 and Bear River ace Vince Viola pitching a spectacular game, Manteca needed something loud to advance the program one more day into the postseason.

Strikeout, strikeout, groundout (second to first).

            The quiet inning wasn’t the direct demise of the Buffaloes, but it was all the program had left after surrendering a pair of errors in the first inning that awarded the Bruins a four-run lead they would never surrender.

            Manteca added two scores off a Tim Larson single in the third, but could not play the runs necessary against Bear River’s top hurler, who entered the game with a .884 ERA and 81 strikeouts across 63 innings of work.

            Viola held Manteca to just two base hits (Beau Fryer first-inning single), and let his defense keep Manteca runners out of scoring position.

            “I told them that there were eight teams left in the entire section, and we were one of them,” Manteca coach Neil MacDannald said. “(Bear River’s) guy just threw a heck of a game and kept the ball down all night.”

            Toby Fox threw a complete game for Manteca, and downed nine Bruins on strikes. He struck out the first two batters of the game, only to watch the second advance to first on a dropped third-strike.

Fox, one of 10 Manteca seniors, struck out 42 this season in 42 innings, with just 17 earned runs allowed.

            The Buffs end the year at 15-11-1 overall, and snared the VOL’s three-seed with a 9-5 league campaign.