Sierra Canyon baseball gets bounce-back win against Notre Dame

CHATSWORTH — The Sierra Canyon baseball team bounced back from a one-run loss to Notre Dame with a resounding 10-4 win Wednesday.

“It showed the heart and character of this team,” Trailblazers coach Tom Meussborn said. “The fight that they have, the togetherness they have to come out and compete after struggling yesterday. It’s having a short-term memory — and the game’s meant to be played every day.”

Wednesday’s result left Notre Dame (6-8 overall, 4-3 Mission League) in a tie with Loyola for third place in the Mission League, and Sierra Canyon (7-6, 3-4) is just below the Knights in fourth place.

Teddy Levin drove in Brayden Goldstein for the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fifth inning and the Trailblazers added five more runs in the next frame, wearing down Notre Dame’s third pitcher of the day in Holden Newhouse.

Levin (2 for 4, four RBIs, stolen base) and Sam Stoller (1 for 4, two RBIs, stolen base) each hit two-run doubles in the sixth inning as part of the rally.

“We all know how good we are and this is a good representation of what we actually are, not the past couple of games,” Levin said. “We have injuries, we have other adversity, we’ve come off a loss but it doesn’t stop us because we’re hard workers.”

Sierra Canyon’s Mikhal Johnson, a dual-sport athlete who also plays football, missed Wednesday’s game due to leg soreness. The Trailblazers regained a designated hitter, however, in Goldstein. The sophomore returned to play Tuesday after missing most of the season due to injury.

Goldstein went 2 for 4 at the plate with a run, an RBI and two doubles Wednesday.

Notre Dame, which beat the Trailblazers 2-1 on Tuesday, jumped on Sierra Canyon early by scoring two runs in the top of the first inning. Phelan Bucknor hit a leadoff single and Jake Nororian scored him with a double, then beat the throw home during an attempted steal by Jacob Madrid.

Beckett Berg, Peter Jackson and Newhouse each took the mound for the Knights.

“We’re blessed with a good amount of arms,” Notre Dame co-head coach Nico LaFace said. “Credit to Sierra Canyon, they did a good job putting the ball in play at times and getting hits when they needed to. It was a combination of us not executing and them taking advantage of it.”

Sierra Canyon first baseman Kyas Howard stole second base and then beat a throw home to light a fire under the Trailblazers offense in the second inning. Dezi Delgado (2 for 3, two runs) cracked an RBI triple and Goldstein’s RBI double punctuated the inning.

“He’s been an energy guy for us all season,” Levin said of Delgado. “When he does what he does like that, it fires us up and that’s our guy.”

A pair of freshman arms worked in Sierra Canyon’s favor. Milo Bennatar gave up six hits and three runs while striking out one hitter before Kingston Monette came in for the remaining four innings. He allowed two hits, one run, three walks and a strikeout to finish off the game.

“We knew what we had to come in and do today,” Monette said. “I think we did that pretty well and my defense had my back all day today. We had a motive to go out and get a win today.”

Sierra Canyon hosts Castaic in a nonleauge game Friday before resuming Mission League play against unbeaten Crespi on Tuesday. Notre Dame hosts Stockdale then has a three-game Mission League series with Bishop Alemany that begins Tuesday.