SACRAMENTO — Knee injuries kept Tyler-Graves Kelso from participating in previous championship runs.
Now playing through an ACL tear, Manteca’s ace pitcher wasn’t going to miss out on this chance to help lead the No. 4 Buffaloes to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championship game.
On Wednesday, he gutted his way through early struggles and finished strong in a 1-0 victory that eliminated top-seeded Vista del Lago in a best-of-three series sweep at McAuliffe Memorial Stadium. After laboring through four innings in which he threw 73 pitches, he hurled just 26 over three perfect frames the rest of the way. The lone run was plated in the bottom of the sixth when Brett Kovacs drew a bases-loaded walk.
During his sophomore year, Graves-Kelso underwent meniscus surgery that prevented him from getting the call-up to the varsity club, which claimed the SJS Division IV title in thrilling fashion against Vista del Lago. This past winter as a key reserve for the Manteca’s basketball team, he reinjured the knee and was sidelined for the rest of the season as the Buffaloes went on to capture the city’s first-ever CIF state championship.
“This means everything,” Graves-Kelso. “After a state championship (in basketball), it would be a heck of a way to finish off my senior year.”
Manteca (22-7) is on a roll after the Valley Oak League champion dropped its regular-season series finale against rival East Union. The Buffaloes will face No. 3 Christian Brothers (24-5-1) next Monday at a site yet to be determined. Christian Brothers held off defending section champion and No. 2-seeded Yuba City 6-4 to sweep the other semifinal series. This marks the second straight year in which neither of the top two seeds is in the Division III title tilt.
The Eagles (23-5-1) of Folsom were heavy favorites to reach the finals and were fifth in the Cal-Hi Sports Division III state rankings going into the semifinal round. Manteca won the series opener 9-7 on Saturday.
“That’s a very talented (team) over there,” Manteca coach Neil MacDannald said. “Maybe except for Heritage (ranked 15th in Division I), that’s the most talented team we’ve played all year. We knew what we had cut out for us. It’s like I always tell these guys, you lay it all out there and see what happens in the end and they’ve done it time and time again. That’s what this team is made of.”
Perhaps no one exemplified that more than Graves-Kelso, who worked through jams in the second, third and fourth innings before settling into a groove. In those three innings, Vista del Lago left seven bases runners stranded — including three in the second — and could not capitalize on four walks, a hit batter and two hits during that stretch.
Michael Nelson and Bryce Mendenhall led off the fourth with infield singles for the Eagles, but Graves-Nelson wiggled out of the rut with his first two strikeouts and a pop fly to left field. Graves-Kelso was nails from there, as he retired the final 11 batters he faced and finished with four strikeouts.
“First four innings I was struggling,” Graves-Kelso said. “I was getting into full counts with almost every batter so that was tough, but they’re a good-hitting team. I’d throw like 10 pitches and they were fouling off at least five of them.
“Their first two times through the order they were squaring me up and fouling them off so I started throwing my off-speed. Once I got my off-speed working I started throwing with better command.”
While Graves-Kelso improved to 9-0 on the season with his three-hit performance, Vista del Lago’s Landon Mitchell was as advertised. He baffled Buffaloes batters early on with his fastball-curveball combination, racked up all six of his strikeouts in the first four innings and also scattered just three hits.
“If Tyler is one thing he’s a competitor,” MacDannald said. “He’s obviously a talented baseball player, but he’s a competitor. The jams he got out of, he just reached way, way down there, and with the help of our defense found a way. It’s hard to top that performance, and for the other kid it’s hard to top that performance. That Mitchell kid is the real deal.”
Things began to unravel for Mitchell and the Eagles in the sixth after Jake Menasco sparked Manteca with a leadoff single to right. He was bunted to second by Mitch Balmut, and Ronaldo Tijero and Kyle Rachels were hit by pitches to load the bases.
With two away, Kovacs worked the count full before plating Tijero with the game-deciding walk.
“We were going in knowing to take a strike and find a pitch that we could gear up and drive,” Kovacs said. “I knew he was struggling a little bit after hitting a few batters and loading the bases. He was struggling to throw it inside so I crowded the plate a little bit and I was mainly looking for a pitch that I could hit out of the infield.
“When it came to full count it was either going to be my pitch or else I’m laying off, and sure enough it was a ball in the dirt.”
That was enough of a cushion for Graves-Kelso to finish the job. He needed just nine pitches to get through the seventh in order, getting Nick McCormick to hit a routine grounder to Manteca freshman Alex Gouveia, who phenomenal yet again at shortstop, for the final out. Neither team had an error.
“I didn’t want (the series) to go to another game,” Graves-Kelso said. “I’m our No. 1 pitcher and with the ball in my hands it took all of my heart and desire knowing that this could be my last high school game pitching.”
