SAN MARCOS — Mistakes, errors, hit batters, walks, wild pitches and ed balls have haunted the Rancho Bernardo High School baseball team all season.
Friday, in a key North County Coastal League game at San Marcos, the Broncos committed two critical errors, hit a batter, walked five, had a ed ball and a wild pitch.
And San Marcos, ranked No. 2 in the county, took full advantage, hanging on for a 7-6 win.
The win moves San Marcos to 16-5-1 overall, 8-3 in the league. La Costa Canyon and Carlsbad are 7-4 after wins Friday.
Rancho Bernardo is 12-11 overall, 6-5 in league play. Torrey Pines is 4-7 and Poway 1-10.
San Marcos has a three-game series with Carlsbad and a game against LCC remaining.
LCC has three games with Poway while Rancho Bernardo plays Torrey Pines three times and Carlsbad once.
“This is a huge win,” said San Marcos coach Jeff Dufek. “You’re never comfortable in this league and Rancho Bernardo’s lineup — one through nine — can hurt you.
“It’s as good as we’ve seen.”
San Marcos led 7-3 after four innings, but Rancho Bernardo made it 7-5 with a pair of runs in the fifth.
Left-hander Isaac Esquer, who threw a complete game to run his record to 4-1, got the first two RB hitters in the top of the seventh.
But Nathan Bembenek beat on an infield single and Brady Strachan was walked intentionally.
Matthew Zacarias singled to score Bembenek to make it a one-run game, but Esquer got the final out on a comebacker.
“I wasn’t pitching to Strachan,” Dufek. “After he crushed a homer in the third, I decided we weren’t pitching to him again. Esquer was OK with that, and got us the win. I was 50-50 on taking him out at the end of the game, but he’s such a great competitor. It was his game to finish.”
Esquer needed close to 100 pitches to complete the game. He allowed eight hits, walked one and struck out six.
“I’ve worked hard on competing,” Esquer said. “I’m much more competitive. I attack hitters, but I have a good defense, so I’m OK with ground ball outs. I really rely on my changeup to get outs.”
Esquer explained he has two changeups — a vulcan change that acts as a splitter and a circle change that runs away from hitters.
“Jeff Pack calls our pitchers, and I love the way he calls games,” Esquer said.
“This was a big game, a game against one of the best teams in the county. So I had to stay focused, stay in the game, stay competitive. I couldn’t let Strachan’s home run bother me. Max Farrell is our big guy. Strachan is RB’s Max Farrell.”
Hugo Gonzalez homered to start the game for RB. Bembenek had two hits, drove in a run and scored three times. Strachan had a two-run homer and walked twice. Junior Gonzalez doubled and scored for the Broncos.
Stephen Pittman had three singles and scored twice for San Marcos. Farrell had an RBI single. Evan Hall and Grayson Wren drove in runs. Maddox Ponsford walked twice and scored. Noah Sumner scored twice, as did Colton Walker.
Nathan Ling pitched 4 1/3 innings in relief for RB, allowing just one earned run.
