BASEBALL: Sneider Shines for Paly

The Score: Palo Alto 4, Los Altos 1

The Star: With the Palo Alto High and Los Altos High baseball teams all set to battle it out in the first of two meetings this week, Palo Alto High junior Ben Sneider knew there would be no element of surprise in this start. Instead, Sneider decided just to throw a new wrinkle into his game plan in order to get the job done. The savvy Paly starter used a plethora of breaking balls to open the count, working backwards throughout the game to keep the potent Los Altos lineup off balance.

The change worked beautifully as the Vikings starter seemed to get stronger as the game moved along, pitching a complete game en route to a 4-1 Palo Alto win over Los Altos (14-6, 9-2 De Anza) Wednesday afternoon at Los Altos High. Sneider only allowed four hits and one run, holding down the first place Eagles to earn his most important victory the season on the hill.

The Turning Point: While Sneider worked his magic on the bump, the Palo Alto (14-7, 8-3 De Anza) offense had to find a way to touch up another tough starter with a similar last name, Eagles senior Mat Snider Jr. Paly pushed across two key runs in the early innings, both coming off sacrifice fly’s. Drake Swezey and Austin Braff each recorded RBIs off the fly outs in the second and third to give Palo Alto a 2-1 advantage after three innings.

With both starters still working strong into the final inning of play, it was Palo Alto that wore down its opposing starter first. Junior outfielder BJ Boyd was struck with a pitch with one away in the seventh, then stole second base to put himself in scoring position. Christoph Bono followed with a walk before Braff lined an RBI single to right field to score the blazing fast Boyd. Senior Will Glazier cranked an RBI single up the gut to score Bono and give the Vikings two more insurance runs going into the final frame of the afternoon.

The Quotes: “We knew we had to sweep Los Altos in order to win the regular season title again,” Paly starter Ben Sneider said about the games importance coming in. “I definitely had my best velocity of the season today. I was really jacked up. This was a big game.”

The pitchers approach was key to his success against the Eagles.

“I kind of pitched backwards,” Sneider said. “Everyone knows each other real well so I knew I wasn’t going to surprise them. I just trusted my off-speed stuff and really had great life on my fastball. Hopefully we can come through again with another good game and clean up on Friday.”

What's Next? The two rivals will tango once more on Friday afternoon at Palo Alto High. Los Altos holds a one game lead over Paly going into the second meeting.

The Bottom Line: It wasn’t hard to see why these two teams came into the game with a combined 28 wins under their belts already in the 2011 season. With both sides armed with great pitching, stingy defense and dangerous lineups up-and-down the order, the De Anza foes treated the fans in attendance to a pitchers dual until the game’s final inning.

Runs may be hard to come by again in the rematch as two more quality arms will take the ball for each side on Friday.

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Palo Alto 4, Los Altos 1

PA 0 1 1 0 0 0 2- 4 4 1

LA 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 – 1 4 3

WP: Sneider. LP: Snider

Records: Palo Alto 14-7, 8-3 De Anza.  Los Altos 14-6, 9-2 De Anza.