Legends Shutout Tomahawks

A solid team effort propelled the Menlo Park Legends intercollegiate baseball team to a 7-0 win over the visiting Salinas Tomahawks yesterday at Cañada College.

Unlike the Legends previous game, the bats were hot. Utility player Jeff Keller led the attack with three hits and two runs batted in, two of those hits being doubles. Outfielder Andrew Castañeda and catcher Peter Woodall added two hits each as well.

In the Legends home opener, the team struck out 10 times in the game. Manager David Klein must have said something right to the team in the post-game speech, for the team only struck out twice.

“I told them to quite digging themselves into holes at the plate and jump on the early fastballs when they got them,” Klein said. “And that is exactly what they did. At times we were overly aggressive, but we put the ball in play a lot, we weren’t striking out and we were putting runs on the board.”

The Legends pitching staff allowed three hits on the game, beginning with a strong six-inning performance by DJ Sharabi, who allowed two hits and struck out two batters. Ryan Reese and Corey Zirbes came in to relief and struck out two more batters.

“I can’t say enough about DJ Sharabi,” Klein said. “He’s gotten so much better—night and day since his first outing of the year. That’s what its all about—improvement. He was lights out.”

The Legends next test is the cross-town rival Palo Alto Oaks. The Oaks are a historically strong team with a very competitive roster.

“We’re going to have Ray Torres, a lefty on the bump. The Oaks are a good team and we are very excited to play them,” Klein said. “We’ll need to play our very best baseball in order to get a victory.”

The Legends host the Oaks today at 2:00pm at Cañada College.

-Max Darrow, Legends Sportswriter