Assistant coach Robbie Hoffman’s said this was his game plan coming into the April 26 matchup, but the pitching was unable to pull through in this match up, as offense helped the Milpitas Trojans (12-5-1, 8-3) to take the 14-4 win against the Matadors.

MVHS (12-9, 8-3) was just unable to create enough momentum in the game to stop the Trojan offense. The Matadors let the Trojans steal seven times while giving up 14 hits.

“Today is a very important game, because before this game we were one game back behind Santa Clara,” Hoffman said. “Now we are two games back and now we are tied with [Milpitas] for second place.”  

While the Matadors swept the previous series against the Trojans, they also faltered at the defensive end by committing three errors.

“The difference between this game and the other Milpitas games we had was [that] we were really flat coming into the game,” junior third baseman Matt Kelley said. “Nobody had any energy and it showed on the field.”

Senior Matt Hopkins (5-1) has been a solid pitcher all season with a 2.98 ERA, but got roughed up by giving up three early runs. On the other end, Trojans starting pitcher junior David Garay also had a rough start allowing two runs to go by, but pitched well enough for the rest of the game to hold the Matadors to only four runs.  

“Milpitas scoring first definitely affects the game a lot,” Kelley said. “It gives them the momentum right away. It’s hard for us to take it back and score more runs.”

The Matadors did have a chance to dent the eight run lead coming into the sixth. The bases were loaded with no outs, but an unfortunate ground ball from senior Zach James led to a double play. They came out of the inning only scoring one run to barely cut the lead to seven runs.

As the game rolled on, the Trojans kept adding on runs eventually reaching an 11-4 lead by the end of the sixth innings. That is when tempers flared between the coaches as the Trojans sent their runner to steal second.

Head coach Brian Sullivan left the dugout, scolding Milpitas coach Chuy Zamudio for the unsportsmanlike play, and Zamudio and his third base coach fired back.

“It’s an understood rule that you stop stealing and bunting and other things when you are ahead by a lot of runs,” Kelley said.

Both coaches ended up with warnings from the umpire for the argument, but the Trojans did not decide to stop after the argument by stealing two more bases in that inning.

Senior Grant Manley pitching in relief had a strong game, being the only pitcher throughout the game to not allow a run go by and getting two hits, including one ground rule double.

““It was pitching today, you know we got ahead of the hitters, but gave up too many hits. It was defense, we made too many errors, we put too many runners on base, [and gave] them too many opportunities to score,” Hoffman said.

The Matadors’ next home game will be on May 5 against first place Santa Clara (9-1).