Faught, Bonanza open baseball season with 13-0 victory over Foothill

Bonanza baseball coach Mike O’Rourke saw only flashes of his team’s potential during its two scrimmages.

But the Bengals put together a complete performance Thursday in their season opener.

Spencer Faught pitched a one-hitter, and host Bonanza batted around in the second and third innings en route to a 13-0 five-inning victory over Foothill in the Bengal Varsity Tournament.

Bonanza takes on defending Division I state champion Liberty at 3:30 p.m. today in the round-robin tournament that ends Saturday. Foothill (0-1) is at Spring Valley today for its second of four games.

“You can’t ask for anything better,” O’Rourke said. “Spencer set the tone off the mound, and offensively, man, guys were making some solid contact and having quality at-bats, and that’s what we preach. I wasn’t expecting that at all, especially against a quality opponent like Foothill.”

Eric Schultz went 3-for-3 with two doubles and just missed a home run leading off the second inning when his drive to left field hit off the top of the fence. Jonathan Massey was 2-for-3 with an RBI, and Hunter Junge drove in three runs.

Faught gave up an infield single to Spencer Throgmorton to open the game and didn’t allow another Foothill batter to reach base. He faced the minimum 15 batters and struck out three while throwing 35 of 54 pitches for strikes.

“He was our guy last year off the bump as a junior,” O’Rourke said. “He’s not going to punch out a lot of guys. He knows his ability as a pitcher, and he plays to that. He throws a bunch of strikes, and he throws multiple pitches for strikes, and he trusts in his defense behind him.”

Chris Dunn lined a run-scoring triple to right-center field in the first, and Junge added an RBI groundout to put the Bengals ahead 2-0. Bonanza then sent 11 batters to the plate in the second inning and scored six runs off two Falcons pitchers.

The Bengals took advantage of two errors and two wild pitches to score the first three runs of the inning. Micah Higa and Schultz each had run-scoring singles, and Junge added a sacrifice fly to center as Bonanza went ahead 8-0.

Bonanza tacked on five runs in the third, highlighted by a two-run single from Levi Klump that made it 10-0.

“I liked our focus,” O’Rourke said. “Our approach was great today, and that’s something we preach a lot. Hopefully, we can keep that focus game to game for the rest of the season.”

Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidSchoenLVRJ.