HUNTINGTON BEACH >> The Newport Harbor baseball team went deep into its pitching staff to beat Huntington Beach 5-3 Friday in a nonleague game at Huntington Beach High.
Jackson Gilles and Bryce Blaser combined for four shutout innings in relief and allowed just one hit to preserve a win for starting pitcher AJ Guitron-Moore.
Gilles had only pitched four innings this season prior to Friday’s game and Blaser had only pitched one.
“They hadn’t pitched much this year but we knew they were in the arsenal,” Newport Harbor coach Josh Lee said. “They both have good arms and when you’re not giving up a lot of walks and you’re challenging with good off-speed stuff, good things are going to happen.”
Guitron-Moore, who was an All-CIF quarterback for the Sailors football team, got his first win of the season with five strikeouts over three innings.
Newport Harbor (7-2) got on the board early with two runs in the first inning. After two walks, Gilles hit a run-scoring double for the first run of the game. Trent Liolios later scored on a wild pitch to put the Sailors up 2-0 in the first.
Huntington Beach (4-4) answered with two runs of its own in the first inning. Arizona State commit Ralph Velazquez hit a solo home run to center field to cut the lead to one.
Aidan Espinoza hit a single and advanced to second on a throwing error during a pickoff attempt. Brian Trujillo drove him in with a single to tie the score.
The Sailors added two more runs in the second inning on a double by Liolios, a Northwestern signee.
In the bottom of the third inning, Trujillo hit a run-scoring double to cut Newport Harbor’s lead to 4-3.
Blaser drove in a run with a single in the fourth inning to give Newport Harbor some breathing room.
Huntington Beach had runners in scoring position in the fifth and seventh innings, but were unable to capitalize.
In the seventh inning, the Oilers had a runner on second with two outs. Espinoza hit a ball sharply to the middle of the infield and Sailors shortstop Joey Wright made an acrobatic play for the final out.
The win was the first for Newport Harbor over Huntington Beach since 2017. Lee, a first-year head coach for Newport Harbor, was happy with the win but knows it is early in the season and the team has bigger goals to accomplish.
“It’s a good validation of the hard work the seniors have put in,” Lee said. “But make no mistake, they have their side of the conference to get after and we have ours. But it’s really cool for the seniors to have a win against Huntington in their high school careers.”