By Judd Leibman
It took Lucas Giolito’s ’12 complete-game no hitter to defeat Arroyo Grande 1-0 in the CIF Playoffs yesterday. In a battle of pitchers, Wes Peacock ’11 scored the only run on an Arden Pabst ’13 RBI single in the bottom of the first.
“There were some hard hit balls, but the defense did a great job with positioning and they made the plays behind me,” Giolito said.
Giolito’s perfect game was broken up with a slew of walks throughout the game. A batter reached first base on a drop-third strike in the top of the sixth. Giolito then loaded the bases with two straight walks with two outs. He got out of the inning with a strike out on a breaking ball in the dirt.
“That sixth inning was a little tough and I had to battle through it,” Giolito said. “I walked the bases loaded, from that point on my mentality was ‘dominate this guy, throw strikes early, and you’ll strike him out.’”
Giolito threw only 83 pitches in seven innings and had 13 strikeouts.
The Arroyo Grande pitcher gave up only two hits, and the run scored was unearned as it came on an error by the third baseman.
“We were expecting, because we faced [the Arroyo Grande pitcher] last year, a low scoring, pitcher duel game, and it lived up to that,” Head Coach Matt LaCour said.
Jack Flaherty ’14 is to start Friday against Santa Barbara.
Judd Liebman ’12 provided live updates throughout the game.
