Walnut's Magical Season Ends in Divisional Final, Falls to Redondo

SAN BERNARDINO – The Walnut High School baseball’s team magical run through the second half of its season and the playoffs ended abruptly Saturday afternoon against Redondo Union 10-0 in the CIF Division 3 final. Walnut started 3-7-2 in its first 12 games, but then it went on an 18-0 run, including upsetting top ranked (according to USA today) then-undefeated San Dimas to get to Saturday’s final.

Walnut (21-8-2) sent junior Cody Dye who looked to stay undefeated in the season to the mound. Redondo Union had other plans, greeting the right hander with a walk and then back to back hits in the opening frame. Redondo batted around in the first inning, getting four hits and scoring five runs.

“I give credit to (Redondo),” said Walnut coach Paul Acosta, “We prepared well. We were ready to play today; Cody Dye was ready to pitch today. It’s just credit to those guys. Their reputation was that they hit the ball, and we saw with our own eyes that they hit the ball well. “

Dye would ultimately settle down, going four and two thirds innings, giving up six runs (five in the first), four hits, but he did strike out three. Walnut, however couldn’t recover from the deficit.

“I got behind a lot,” Dye said. “They are a good hitting team and when you get behind hitters, it’ll happen.”

The Mustangs replaced Dye with Christian Longoria in the fifth in hopes to clean up the mess; instead he met the same fate as Dye as Redondo scored four more runs against him before he was finally able to get out of the inning striking out Brady Dorn.

The Mustangs couldn’t figure out Redondo Starter Cooper Gallion, who had a perfect game going into the fourth inning. They were finally able to muster two walks and a hit in the fourth by Andy Rodriguez for its only viable threat of the game. Walnut had the bases loaded, but then Michael Mora lined out to right to end the inning. Maxwell Masana added one more hit in the fifth, but the outcome has long been decided.

“You have to tip your hat to Gallion,” Acosta said. “He threw the ball well, kept us off-balance. That’s all you can do. Redondo was the better team today.”