Tracy Press

West High's baseball team gets the right hits at the right time today for a 6-1 win against Sierra High.

West High’s batters knew they could hit the ball; they just had to find the right time to do it.

For Mike Wentz, it was the bottom of the third inning against the Sierra High Timberwolves of Manteca today, with two outs and Josh Thomassen and Riley Goulding on base.

Wentz said the pitch looked like a curveball at first, but it arrived straight up the middle, a little more than waist-high.

“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” he said. “I let it get back in the zone and turned on it.”

He put it in play all the way to the right-field fence for a two-run triple.

The Wolf Pack relied on key hits like that and effective base-running to secure the 6-1 win at the West High baseball field.

Even as West’s batters executed their game well, West’s defense gave little away.

Starting pitcher Ryan Devencenzi allowed three hits in six innings. The first Sierra batter he faced, Jacob Angelo, smashed the ball deep into center field for a triple and went home on single up the middle by Jon Nunes.

That was about all the West defense would allow.

“I was just trying to find the kinks on the mound,” Devencenzi said.

After those first two hits, the West infield made a double play. The only other Sierra batter to get a base hit also got caught in a double play. Sierra wouldn’t get more than four batters up in any inning for the entire game.

“It was a good team effort,” Devencenzi said.

West coach Jim Rice said the win is just what his team needed after two games that ended with West losing by one run

“Today, we had some key hits with runners in scoring position, and that’s what we’ve been lacking in these close games,” Rice said referring to a pair of 3-4 losses last week when the team hit the ball but ended up leaving runners on base.

Rice said he still urges his players to look carefully at each pitch, sometimes letting the called strike get past them. This time, when the Wolf Pack took swings, they made them count. West collected nine hits over six innings and left six runners on base, including Wentz’s triple and another triple by C.J. Parilla in the sixth inning, which put Parilla in position to make it home on a Thomassen single.

“That’s the confidence they need to build, to not be afraid to get deep in the count, and to be stubborn,” Rice said.

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