El Rancho ends Orland’s season

Blake Marchant of El Rancho proved to be the Orland 11-12 baseball all-star team’s undoing both at the plate and on the mound.

The son of former Willows High School boys tennis coach Jay Marchant, Blake had the big hit in Sunday’s first game of a best-of-three series between El Rancho and Orland to decide the District 47 11-12 baseball championship. Then he took the mound on Monday and allowed just one hit before finally giving way to a relief pitcher in the sixth.

The two losses ended the season for Orland, which won four games in the all-stars tournament, including an extra-inning affair against Westside in the pool championship game in Willows on Friday.

In the first championship game on Sunday, Orland scored two runs in the first inning, three in the second and one in the third to build a 6-4 lead.

Levi Paschal scored the first round when he reached on a fielder’s choice and came home on a passed ball. Andrew Shippelhoute also singled in the inning and came home on a groundball out.

After El Rancho scored three runs in the bottom of the first to take the lead, Orland got three of its own to move ahead 5-3. Austin Burbank and Weston Foster both scored on a bases-loaded walk and Paschal ran home on a passed ball to account for the runs.

In the third, Steve Castillo walked and scored on a groundout to make it 6-3. El Rancho then added a run in the bottom of the third to cut Orland’s lead to 6-4.

Orland was unable to score its next three at-bats and that proved to be its undoing. With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, El Rancho was able to put two runners on base ahead of Marchant, who then blasted a three-run homer over the centerfield fence to end the game, 7-6.

On Monday, Marchant held Orland without a hit through the first three innings until Shippelhoute doubled down the leftfield line. Orland was unable to take advantage of the situation, though, as El Rancho got the out at home plate on a squeeze play.

Tony Esquivel finally broke the drought for Orland when he walked and scored on a groundout in the fifth inning to cut El Rancho’s lead to 2-1. However El Rancho added three runs in the bottom of the fifth to up its lead to 5-1.

Shippelhoute walked and scored in the top of the sixth and Orland was able to load the bases, but a long flyball out to centerfield ended the game.

On Friday, Orland got an outstanding mound effort from Garrett Ferreira as he went six innings and gave up just two runs on five hits with 11 strikeouts.

Westside was able to tie the game at 2-2 in the top of the sixth inning and it looked like the game might go into extra innings.

However with Ferreira on second base, Shay Shull lined a single to right field, allowing Ferreira to score the winning run in the bottom of the sixth to win the game, 3-2.

Foster had a double in the win, which was Orland’s only hit until the sixth inning when Paschal, Austin Burbank and Shull all hit singles.