PaliHi Baseball Bounces Back at Westchester

It wasn’t a must-win situation, but last Friday’s Western League game against Westchester was crucial for the psyche of the Palisades High varsity baseball team and the Dolphins rose to the challenge like Coach Mike Voelkel hoped they would.

Cade Hulse pitched into the seventh inning and hit an RBI double and reliever Jed Moscot struck out Comets leadoff hitter Jaylon McLaughlin with the bases loaded to cap a 4-0 victory. It was PaliHi’s first win since blanking Garfield 3-0 on March 6 and it gave the team much-needed momentum heading into this week’s games against LACES.

“I talk to my brother (former PaliHi pitcher and 2009 Palisadian-Post Cup Award recipient Jon Moscot) about how to handle those situations and I wanted to be the guy who got that first [league] win,” Moscot said. “It was just the beginning. We have a lot of potential and we need to show more. We can still go far.”

Hulse had four strikeouts and got plenty of help from his defense, particularly shortstop Josh Holmes, who fielded a grounder up the middle, stepped on second and fired to Brendan Ward at first for a double play in the second inning. With two outs and a runner on third in the fifth, Holmes backhanded a two-hopper and threw out Westchester’s Josh Zimmerman by a step to keep the host Comets off the scoreboard.

The Dolphins (3-7, 1-1) got all the runs they would need in the third when Harrison McElroy led off with an infield single and Tyler Yeh walked. Julian Hart hit an RBI double to center and Holmes’ suicide squeeze scored Ward from third. Hulse gave himself and his team an insurance run in the sixth on a ground rule double to left field to bring in Holmes.

“We’ve actually had two good weeks of practice and weren’t rewarded for it against San Pedro (a  5-1 nonleague loss March 26) or the other day,” Voelkel said, referring to last Wednesday’s 4-3 league-opening loss to Westchester. “When a guy pitches as well as Cade did today you want to get him through it but I decided to go with a fresh arm and when it comes to mental toughness on the mound Jed’s probably the best kid we’ve got. He trusted his mechanics and got it done. Now we have to build on this instead of taking one step forward and two back.”

Holt Maybank got the start in the league opener at PaliHi and allowed two runs in the first inning and another in the second, but he kept his composure and  kept the Dolphins in the game. Holmes had an RBI double and scored on Moscot’s single to tie the game 3-3 in the fifth.

“It was great to be out there but I wish I could’ve pitched better that first inning,” Maybank said. “I try to put zeros up no matter how many runs we score,  but we’ve got to try not to play catch up too much. Playing with the lead is a lot easier than playing from behind.”