The higher the stakes, the more it seems that Grant Horsley rises to the occasion.
With Point Loma jumping out in front of Newport Harbor in the regional semifinals, Horsley decided to take matters into his own hands.
“That’s what he is,” said head coach Josh Lee. “He’s special on the mound; he’s even more special at short. We know exactly what he can do at the plate.”
Not only did he go 4-for-4 at the plate with four RBIs, but the senior tossed 4 ⅔ scoreless innings, leading Newport Harbor (24-10) to an 11-6 comeback victory over the Pointers (20-12-1).
“The kid’s an all-around player,” said Lee. “Today was a great day for me as his coach, because I get to see other people recognize what he is. Really proud and happy for him.”
Horsley and the Sailors will play one more game in the CIF Southern California Division 2 regional final. Their opponent is to be determined.
“That was a really gutsy win. We got punched in the first inning,” said Horsley. “We want it bad. We lost last week in the semis and this was another opportunity to come out, play more baseball and get to host a regional championship in our place.”
Point Loma didn’t make things easy in the slightest.
The Pointers started the game off with a bang, taking a 3-0 lead thanks to a pair of homers from Cal State Fullerton commit Hunter Reddeg and pitcher Ace Selcow.
“The message after that inning was, ‘ Do you want to go home or do you want to play one more?’,” said Lee.
Newport Harbor received the message loud and clear. They loaded the bases for Horsley and he came through with a two-run ground run double to deep left field to cut the lead to 3-2.
“I was seeing the ball well, I guess,” said Horsley.
Catcher Brooks Francis kept it going, tying the game at 3-3 with an RBI infield base hit. Owen Damush followed up by first pitch swinging for an RBI base hit to left field to give Newport Harbor the lead at 4-3.
“We haven’t really been tested like that in any other games,” said Lee. “They punched us in the mouth and we punched back.”
It was the Pointer’s turn to punch back, but it was small ball that helped tie it at 4-4 in the second inning.
Nicolas Quintero led off with a base hit, reached second on a delayed steal and scored on a bunt that the catcher overthrew.
They weren’t done there. Jaxon Seiler gave Point Loma the lead back at 5-4 with an RBI single up the middle.
The Sailors weren’t phased. UC Santa Barbara commit Gavin Guy and Henry Mann started a two-out rally with back-to-back base hits and Horsley got the job done again, knocking in Guy with an RBI base hit to tie the game at 5-5.
“There are a lot of D1 teams that need to wake the hell up and figure it out, because he’s really good,” said Lee.
The back-and-forth slugfest continued. Selchow belted his second home run of the day to take the lead back at 6-5 and knock starter Keaton Anderson out of the game.
Horsley entered in relief and didn’t allow another run. He was changing speeds, forcing weak contact and trusting his defense to only allow three hits.
“It was really cool to see them pick up Keaton. He’s picked us up countless times this year,” said Lee.
After a couple of clean innings from Selcow on the bump, Newport Harbor got to him again in the fifth, putting two runners in scoring position for Keoni Wun.
He delivered, knocking both in on the first pitch he saw to snatch the lead at 7-6.
The rally continued and the Sailors loaded the bases with two outs for red-hot Horsley.
To no surprise, he came through again, this time on an RBI bunt single that extended the lead to 8-6.
“My coach told me before the at-bat to look for that bunt because they were back. So I laid it down and they couldn’t do anything about it.”
The Sailor bats picked up right where they left off in the sixth. With two outs and the bases juiced, Guy crushed a ball to left field for a bases-clearing double that made it an 11-6 game.
“It was loud off the bat. I was really proud of him for not going up and chasing the first pitch. He had some patience, he saw some pitches and he put a hell of a swing on it. He’s our guy,” said Lee.
Guy finished his day 3-for-4 at the dish with two runs scored and three RBIs.
“He woke up at the plate today; he’s been struggling all year,” said Lee. “But you know, he’s Gavin Guy. He’s a freak athlete; we’ve known what he could do.”
The five-run lead was just too much for the Pointers and Horsley shut the door on them in the seventh.
“Big three RBI double that gave us a lot of insurance. That was big for my confidence,” said Horsley.
The Sailors will host the Regional Championship this weekend for the first time in program history.
“Really proud of the kids, that was resilient,” said Lee. “The idea to not quit, that’s what we try to instill and they did it.”
