Burroughs baseball sweeps Arcadia for first time since 2015

BURBANK — Arcadia has been the dominant baseball team in the Pacific League for nearly this entire century. The Apaches have won numerous league titles, including the last six.

When Arcadia didn’t win the league, Crescenta Valley did. Now there’s a new team that’s contending: Burroughs.

The Bears defeated Arcadia 2-1 Friday night to complete their first season sweep over the Apaches since 2015.

Burroughs (17-3, 10-0) is now tied for first in league with Crescenta Valley (15-2, 10-0). The two squads will face each other twice next week.

Arcadia (13-9, 8-2) will face Burbank twice next week before ending league play against Crescenta Valley the week after.

Despite the two losses this week, Arcadia can still make a run toward a seventh consecutive league championship depending on what happens the next two weeks.

“We’re frustrated,” said Arcadia coach Nick Lemas. “We gave them a run in the last inning. (Burroughs) had two hits the whole game. We lost.”

Burroughs defeated Arcadia 6-3 on Tuesday to end Arcadia’s 25-game league winning streak. Friday’s game though was much tighter than Tuesday’s contest. It turned into a pitchers’ duel between Burroughs junior Kayson Montgomery and Arcadia senior lefty ace Damian Catano.

Catano allowed only two runs and two hits while striking out five. However, Catano struggled with control in the bottom of the sixth. He walked two batters and hit two more which allowed Burroughs to break a 1-1 tie.

That bottom of the sixth started with Catano grazing the jersey of leadoff batter Elliot Ross. Logan Drossin and Devin Whittekiend both walked to load the bases. Catano then hit Jack Smith to bring in the eventual game-winning run.

Catano managed to get out of the inning following a strikeout and fly out that ended in a double play. Left fielder Julian Salmon caught the fly out and fired the ball to catcher Maverick Silva to get Drossin out at home to keep the score at 2-1.

Arcadia had a chance in the top of the seventh to tie the game when Juan Mineya smacked a single to left to start the inning. Pinch hitter Joey Garcia bunted Mineya over to second. Evan Skinner grounded out to the shortstop for the second out but moved Mineya over to third. Leadoff hitter Jordan Vogel flied out to center to end the game,

Montgomery earned the win for Burroughs. He allowed seven hits and struck out four.

He got out of a jam in the top of the sixth when Arcadia had runners on first and second with one out. He got Aiden Soto to fly out to right then got Salmon to foul out to first to end the scoring threat.

“It’s a really tough lineup,” Montgomery said of Arcadia. “It’s a tough win in general.”

Montgomery said he got into a rhythm after allowing a home run to the second batter of the game, Matt Manzo. He smashed the ball to right-center to give Arcadia a 1-0 lead.

“I was throwing a slider pretty much every single first pitch,” Montgomery said. “It kept working. After every inning, I told my coach, whenever you need to change it up I trust you.”

The Burroughs offense scraped together one run in the bottom of the third to tie the game 1-1.

Drossin hit a sacrifice fly to center that scored Zack Guevara from third. Guevara reached base on a failed sacrifice bunt that saw Catano throw to Manzo to get Montgomery as he tried to advance to third base.

Ross then hit a double that moved Guevara to third with one out.

The only Apache with multiple hits was Catano who went 2 for 3.

Burroughs coach Matt Magallon said he was proud of his players for pulling out such a tough win. He also praised Arcadia.

“They’re tough,” he said of Arcadia. “They’re the best team in the league and have been for a long, long time. It’s because they’re coached really well and they really have some great players.”