FONTANA — David Trujillo possesses a calm and cool demeanor.
And that’s precisely why Miller baseball coach Steve Mann said Trujillo was in the right place at the right time Friday afternoon.
Trujillo’s bloop single to center field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning brought home Nolan Streand and capped a stunning finish for the Rebels, who rallied for a 7-6 victory over Cal Lutheran in a CIF Southern Section Division 8 playoff opener.
“I was excited but at the same time a little nervous,” the junior catcher said about stepping into the box with the game on the line. “Game tied, so I wanted to get that big hit. Let’s get this and walk it off. My approach was: if it’s a strike, swing and put it in play.”
Miller (16-10) never led until Trujillo’s hit. The Rebels trailed 6-3 after five innings but scored twice in each of the final two frames.
“That’s just what Miller baseball does,” Mann said. “We’re scrappy and never say die. … Luckily we came out ahead in this one.”
It was a rough start for the Rebels on Friday, as Cal Lutheran (13-6) opened the game with four consecutive singles en route to scoring three runs. Christian Sutton got the C-Hawks on the board with an RBI single. Eli Hansen later added an RBI groundout.
Miller answered back, however. Nathan Lora doubled home a run, and the Rebels added another run on a dropped third strike in the bottom half of the first inning. Miller leveled the score at 3 in the third inning, as another run scored on a wild pitch.
The top of Cal Lutheran’s order came through again in the fourth inning. Ethan Ash singled home a run in the fourth inning, and Sutton added a sacrifice fly later in the inning. Sutton’s second sacrifice fly of the afternoon extended the lead to 6-3 in the sixth.
Cal Lutheran registered 13 hits against Miller’s Ilya Ridge, including three apiece from Ash, Colton McGee and Mathias Galanos. But the C-Hawks also stranded 10 runners, as Ridge worked out of jams and made sure the game did get away from the Rebels.
“That’s one of the best hitting teams I’ve ever faced … probably the best I’ve faced,” Ridge said of Cal Lutheran. “I listened to my pitching coach and went with what he called. He knows what he’s doing, so I could limit the damage by following what he said.”
Ash started the game on the mound for Cal Lutheran and kept Miller’s batters off-balance with a good curve ball and change-up. But Ash run into some trouble during the sixth inning. The Rebels scored one run on a passed ball, and Adrian Quintana singled home another run to cut the deficit to one. McGee took over on the mound for the C-Hawks and got a pop-up to end that inning.
McGee fanned the first batter in the bottom of the seventh but then walked a batter and hit another. Miller swiped eight bases in the game, including three in the final frame. That aggressiveness paid off, as Elian Salas scored the tying run on a passed ball with two outs. That set the stage for Trujillo, who was mobbed at first base by his teammates after his single touched the grass.
“David is a real quiet kid, but he has nerves of steel,” Mann said Trujillo. “He was the perfect player to be up to bat for us there.”
Miller, the division’s No. 2 seed, heads to Mountain Valley League rival San Bernardino (12-4) for a second-round game Tuesday. San Bernardino won the first game of the season series (6-4), but Miller won the last two (7-0 and 7-1) to claim the league title.
