Yountville,CA- Napa and Vintage met up Friday afternoon in a battle for Monticello Empire League supremacy, with Vintage emerging victorious, 3-0, behind the strong performance of Cal-bound pitcher Jared Horn.
The game was scoreless through the first two innings before the Crushers pushed two runs across on Napa pitcher Noah Vulk, both of them being unearned. Jake Rasmusen reached on a single to right field, and was moved over on a Nick Akey bunt. Rasmusen came all the way around to score after a throwing error by Indians' third baseman Tyler Walls, while Akey ended up on third base and then scored on Horn's sacrifice fly to Napa right fielder Jason Pridy in foul territory, with Akey narrowly beating the tag in a very close play at home plate.
All through, Napa’s Noah Vulk pitched a strong game, but Horn simply dazzled against the Indians hitters. Horn struck out nine Indians' batters on the day, with seven of those on called third strikes.
“After the third inning I found my groove”, Horn said. “I started getting quicker reads.”
“Jared (Horn) was everything that I know he is”, Napa coach Todd Pridy said. “He's got command of two really good pitches.”
The final run of the game came when Vintage’s Ross Henderson smacked a full-count Vulk fastball to the right-centerfield gap to score Blake Jacques, who pinch ran for Vintage first baseman Joe Canepa after he had singled.
“I just wanted to put it in play,” Henderson said. “Just try to get a piece into the gap.”
Vulk went six innings, allowing three runs, only one earned. The senior also had four strikeouts.
“I thought Noah Vulk was fantastic today”, Vintage coach Rich Anderson said. “I thought he pitched really well.”
“Noah gave us a good enough effort to win”, Pridy added. “I thought we'd see exactly what I thought we were going to see which was two very good pitchers go at it.”
Napa (9-6 overall, 4-1 MEL) next faces Vacaville Wednesday at 4pm, while Vintage (10-4-1 overall, 5-0 MEL) travels to Armijo on Wednesday at 4pm.
“Our league is tough”, Anderson added. “Any team in our league can come and beat us.”
“Every team in this league is competitive”, Pridy added. “We got through the first run through league 4-1, all four of those were close games and they were hard fought.”
