Super hero effort from Erickson lifts No. 3 Mater Dei to Boras Classic title

STOCKTON, Calif. — For his last two championship game outings, Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) senior pitcher Jacob Erickson resembled Clark Kent (Super Man) — strong, overpowering and unbeatable.

In Saturday's 8-0 win over Pleasant Grove (Elk Grove) to claim the first Boras Classic championship at the University of the Pacific, Erickson was more like Peter Parker (Spider Man) — elusive, adaptable, able to escape improbable, high-wire spots.

Either way, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound senior turned in another Super Hero effort leading the nation's No. 3 team to its 17th straight win while winning a very unofficial but impressive California state title.

Erickson stranded 10 runners in five innings, including the leadoff batter in each frame and a runner from third with less than two out each inning.

He was the obvious choice as Defensive MVP of the game awarded by the organizer's officials while senior center fielder Austin Grebeck (3-for-4, double, triple, two runs) was offensive MVP.

The Boras Classic featured 32 teams — 16 from Southern California and 16 from Northern California — and Mater Dei (Southern) and Pleasant Grove (Northern) won each region.

"Today I just had to go out and battle," Erickson said. "Clearly I didn't have my best stuff. I was missing in the zone even in the bullpen. But my teammates picked me up and we got the win. That's all that matters."

After hurling complete game shutouts against Harvard-Westlake (four-hitter, eight strikeouts) and Oaks Christian (six-hitter, 12 strikeouts), Erickson has now pitched 19 scoreless innings in championship tournament game play.

Unlike the last two crisp outings when he combined for one walk, on Saturday he struggled with his control with four walks and two hit batsmen. His defense, though a little shoddy at times with four errors, also threw out two batters at the plate to All-American catcher Jeremy Martinez.

Erickson stranded the bases loaded in both the third and fourth innings.

"Jacob settled down when he had to," Mater Dei coach Burt Call said. "He had a bulldog attitude. I don't think he had great stuff be he found a way to get outs. And that was huge in a game like this."

He also had to battle emotions. Twice he thought he struck out batters on 3-2 pitches, that were called balls fours. He jumped up and down but eventually calmed down.

"It's one thing to get squeezed early in the count," Erickson said. "But on 3-2 pitches, it was a little frustrating. You just have to battle through that."

Besides, the Monarchs (17-1) put things pretty much away with five runs in the third on just two hits, two walks and three Pleasant Grove errors.

Grebeck led things off with a single and after an infield error, Martinez sacrificed the runners over and reached on another throwing error. That scored Grebeck.

Ryan McMahon singled in another run and after a stellar diving catch by first baseman Trevor Widler, back-to-back walks scored two more runs. Brett Mellon's RBI groundout made it 5-0.

A sacrifice fly from Martinez scored Grebeck who doubled in the fourth, Davis Tominaga tripled home Brandon Perez in the fifth and a Tyler Adkison sacrifice fly platted Grebeck in the fifth. Grebeck led off the inning with a triple.

"I've been seeing the ball well all year," said Grebeck, who has signed to Oregon. "We all have. It's pretty easy for me to score when I have these guys batting behind me."

It was a rough outing for Pleasant Grove (12-4), which came in with eight straight wins, including an 11-1 win over rival Elk Grove to win the 16-team Northern California portion of the tournament.

Interestingly, Pleasant Grove scored 11 runs in four straight games heading into Saturday, but simply couldn't come up with a clutch hit against the Monarchs.

"We definitely played a whole lot better heading into this game than we played today," said third baseman and cleanup hitter Austin Friello, who had two of his team's four hits. "We just made way too many mistakes in every aspect."

Mater Dei 8, Pleasant Grove 0

Mater Dei          005 111  0 — 8 6 4
Pleasant Grove 000 000 0 — 0 4 3

Jacob Erickson, Brian Conley (6), Tim Peabody (7) and Jeremy Martinez; Dalton Gomez, Andrew Cisneros (4), Jared Spohr (5), Josh Adams (7) and Nico Toni. WP: Erickson. LP: Gomez. 2B: Austin Grebeck (MD). 3B: Grebeck, Davis Tominaga (MD). Records: Mater Dei 16-1, Pleasant Grove 12-4.