Four-run first helps Legacy notch key baseball victory

The top individual performance Tuesday belonged to Arbor View’s Zach Quintana, who hit three home runs.

But the game, along with a leg up in the race for the Sunset Region baseball playoffs, belonged to Legacy.

The Longhorns scored four runs in the first inning and held on for a crucial 8-5 home win over Arbor View, keeping their hold on the Northwest League’s fourth and final playoff spot.

“We’re definitely in a must-win situation,” Legacy center fielder Pierce Skinner said. “I was telling this team before we even started the game that we’ve got to win from here on out, and we’re not going to bow down to anybody.”

Skinner went 3-for-4 with three RBIs. The senior’s two-run triple to center field keyed the four-run first inning, and Legacy (14-11, 7-5) never fully lost momentum.

Skinner added a two-out RBI single in the fourth that gave Legacy a 7-2 lead.

“(Skinner) is our catalyst,” Legacy coach Bill Dexheimer said. “He’s one of those guys who can fire up a team pretty quickly. He’s the kind of kid you want at the plate when the game’s on the line.”

After Arbor View’s Tyler LeBaron doubled to left field in the top of the seventh, the Aggies had the potential tying run on deck with two outs, but Evan McMahan flied out to center to end the game.

Legacy left-hander Brayden Torres pitched a scoreless sixth and seventh to pick up the save, striking out the first two batters in the seventh.

Quintana, who went 3-for-4 with five RBIs, hit solo homers in the first and third innings along with a three-run blast in the fifth, all to center field. But that accounted for all the runs for Arbor View (13-10, 5-6).

“We tell our pitchers that solo home runs aren’t going to kill us,” Dexheimer said. “(Quintana) had a three-run home run in (the fifth), but the fact we scored enough early on really helped us.”

Legacy has won seven of its last eight games, including three straight league games, but Dexheimer said the fast start was a welcome change.

“To come up with four runs against a team like (Arbor View) that can hit the ball, it was huge, and we kept pressure on them,” Skinner added. “It was good to have pressure on somebody else and not us, for once.”

Josh Torres went 2-for-4 with a double, two runs and an RBI for Legacy, and Ryan Calsada was 2-for-4 with a double.

LeBaron went 2-for-4 for Arbor View, which dropped its fourth straight league game.