Lira's walk-off single lifts Oakmont over Lincoln

If Oakmont baseball coach Paul Martinez has said it once, he's said it a dozen times this season, "This team doesn't give up." Down to their last three outs trailing Lincoln 3-1 on May 16, the Vikings rallied to score three runs and win it 4-3 in walk-off fashion on Tony Lira's single. The win put the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV champions back in the championship game, this year in Division III, against Central Catholic (21-8), which was going for a second straight Division III championship. The Vikings only had three hits off of Lincoln starter Ben Schimpf through the sixth inning, but KC Tibbets led off the seventh with a double off the left-field wall to start the rally. That hit seemed to take something out of Schimpf. Dom Prado made good contact and flied out to right field for the first out, but then Schimpf walked Brady Fearn and hit Wyatt Penman, the Vikings eighth and ninth hitters in the lineup, to load the bases. Cooper Kunis beat out a slow roller to first base for an infield hit, which also scored Tibbets from third to make the score 3-2. Trevor Wilson, who started the game and pitched six innings, allowing three runs and striking out eight, then drew a walk to push across Fearn, which tied the score at 3. That brought Lira, Oakmont's most feared hitter and University of Arizona commit, to the plate with a chance to win the game. "The only thing I was thinking about on deck was last year and losing to Central Catholic in the NorCal Regional finals and I wanted to get back to them," Lira said. "I wanted this bad, really bad, and I knew I could do it. "I'm not afraid of getting two strikes on me at all. I'll battle. All I thought about was doing my job and putting the ball in play." Lira hit a pitch from Lincoln reliever Curtis Strother back up the middle for the game-winning hit that scored Penman from third. "It feels amazing to get the game-winning hit," Lira said. "We didn't play Oakmont baseball in the first six innings. We were all frustrated, but we all knew what we had to do coming into the seventh inning. We don't ever give up here. We knew today was not the day to lose." Schimpf had shut down Oakmont all game, allowing only one run in the first inning. "We had a bunch of bad at-bats in a row; we had three innings of nothing until Wyatt got a hit in the fifth inning," Martinez said. "I brought the guys together and told them that if you guys keep swinging the bat that way, if you can't lay off those pitches, we're going to lose. "We started to do a better job. We started getting more takes, getting in deeper counts, and their guy I think got a little fatigued at the end, as we got into some leverage counts and got some baserunners on." Wilson gave it his all on the mound, even though he didn't have his best stuff. Lincoln scored a run in the first inning with two outs. Kenny Winters hit an infield single to third base, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Jake Redding's base hit. Wilson singled and scored on Ayden Dringenberg's infield single to tie the score in the bottom of the first. Lincoln added single runs in the third and sixth innings. In the third, Kade Spomer led off with a walk and scored on Redding's second RBI hit. In the sixth, Redding tripled to left when the ball bounced over Penman's head. He then scored on Eli Duff's fielder's-choice ground ball. "It was awesome having Trevor out here," Martinez said. "I'd said he had a 'B' performance for him. He struggled with command. He didn't land as many fastballs as I hoped he would. He got behind with that pitch, but he's just a warrior. It could be 2-0 and he could still stay in the at-bat and finish a guy off. It definitely gave us an advantage with him out there." It was a heartbreaking loss for the Fighting Zebras (23-8-1), who not only gave themselves a chance with a 10-5 win over Oakmont in game two of the best-of-three series, but put themselves two outs away from victory in game three. They couldn't get it done. "Yes, this sucks," Lincoln coach Mike Allen said. "Maybe I left Ben in a little too long. I went out to get him and my infielders were like, 'No way, you're not taking him out,' so I told him I'll let him face one more guy. You've got to love stuff like that when teammates have each other's back. We talk about family a lot and that was a good place for it. "We only had four seniors and I was with some of them all four years. I can't say enough about those guys. One chapter closes for them but another opens."