CCS playoff thriller: Leigh completes comeback bid, walks-off Westmont to advance to D-II finals
Leigh will play No. 7 King’s Academy in the championship game on Friday
LOS GATOS – Top-seeded Leigh was down to its last at-bat and facing elimination.
The Longhorns, trailing by two runs in the bottom of the seventh, loaded the bases with nobody out against Westmont ace Mason Pound. After retiring Leigh standout and league MVP Ollie Obenour on a force out at the plate, Pound walked Carter Williams to force in a run. Then Lance Takamura stepped to the plate and lined a base hit to left-center. Two runs scored to give Leigh a 4-3 victory and the celebration began.
“I went up there thinking if he throws me a fastball I’m going to barrel it and win it for the team,” Takamura said. “It was a fastball, right down the middle. The team worked so hard for this. This was our first goal at the start of the season. I was lucky enough to get the big hit.”
The Leigh rally ended a terrific effort by Pound, who threw a nine-inning 1-0 shutout against Los Altos on Saturday and came back on three days rest to turn in another superlative performance.
“We were definitely going to go with our best,” Westmont coach Tony Pianto said. “He might’ve run out of a little bit of gas at the end, but gave us a great opportunity to win. I wish we’d taken the opportunity to score more runs.”
Westmont had the bases loaded with one out in the top of the fifth when Obenour was brought in from shortstop to take over on the mound. He struck out the next two batters to get out of the jam with no runs scored. He went the last two innings, faced eight batters in all and struck out seven of them.
Pound finished his senior season 9-4 with a 1.65 ERA.
“I felt good, maybe not 100%,” he said. “Losing our catcher was a big deal.”
Batterymate Christian Preciado suffered an injury in the fifth inning and had to be replaced.
Pound was also a standout quarterback for the Westmont football team. He said he doesn’t have any offers to this point and will probably go to a local community college to play baseball or football or both. Any sport where he can throw a ball.
No. 4 Westmont (20-9) scored single runs in the first, second and fourth innings for a 3-0 lead as Pound extended his scoreless innings streak in the CCS playoffs to 13. Left fielder Tyler Risolia scored a run, drove in another, had three hits and a stolen base.
In the fifth, Michael Mogannam, who went 3-of-3 out of the No. 9 spot in the Leigh batting order, led off with a double and went to third on an infield single by Dylan Christian. Mogannam scored on Brandon Kim’s ground out for the first run in two games off Pound.
It stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh when the Longhorns broke through and rallied for the walk-off win.
“It was a good high school gamer,” Leigh coach Drew Marino said. “We know each other real well. Mason Pound was real good today. We just stuck with it and grinded and grinded.”
Takamura, Obenour and Kim had two hits apiece for Leigh (19-9), which advanced to the Central Coast Section Division II championship game Friday at Excite Ballpark against No. 7 seed The King’s Academy.
“These kids have put in the work,” Marino said. “We had a group that got to the final last year. We have a lot of returning guys who were sophomores and juniors on that team last year. They set out a goal to get back to Excite Ballpark. They’ve accomplished their goal and give it a go, try to win it this year.”