Patterson baseball ‘can do’ with Santiago Cantu in lineup

Patterson High School junior Santiago Cantu spent the summer months getting close to the Mundt brothers, Central Catholic’s rich baseball bloodline.

The three played together with NorCal Valley, a well-traveled, well-exposed club skippered by the Raiders’ new brass – coach Danny Ayala and assistant Steve Marks.

Fanfare has followed the Mundts. Senior Sam Mundt is headed to Utah on a scholarship, while younger brother Joey isn’t far behind on the recruitment trail.

Cantu, the pride of Patterson baseball, is much more than an ancillary piece. He proved as much Tuesday morning in a 3-2 victory over Joey Mundt and the Raiders at the 47th annual Dick Windemuth Easter Tournament.

Cantu outdueled his NorCal Valley teammate, needing only 81 pitches to twirl a complete-game gem.

The Tigers (10-1) won in dramatic fashion, gut-punching the Raiders with a rally in their final at-bat. Jordan Mendes and Jacob Ferreira slapped RBI singles off Mundt in the bottom the seventh inning to secure the walk-off victory against a former Western Athletic Conference rival.

“This game, it changes our mindset,” said Cantu, now 3-0 in five starts with a spotless 0.00 ERA. “Now, in my mind, we can compete with the teams in our league and we have the ability to beat a good team.

“This game, out of all the preseason games, I think this one means the most to us. Patterson and Central Catholic, we’re like rivals. I felt we had to compete. To me, this game was big because we all got friends on that team. It was like backyard baseball.”

Cantu was throwing Wiffle balls that danced in the wind.

The 6-foot right-hander settled after a shaky first inning. Eagen Fierro scored on an error by the third baseman and Ryan Dami laced a double into the left-field corner to stake the Raiders to a 2-0 lead.

The runs, albeit unearned, were just the second and third allowed by Cantu in five starts.

“I was a little bummed,” said Cantu, who adjusted the second and third time through the Raiders’ order.

The right-hander struck out four over the final two innings as he established control of all three pitches: fastball, change-up and curve. He gave up four hits, none after the third.

“I started to get comfortable on the mound,” Cantu said, “started to get comfortable with my pitches.”

Patterson coach Tony Lomeli credited Cantu, a third-year varsity starter, with keeping the slow-to-start Tigers in the game.

Cantu (3-0) is now 12-7 in 22 career starts and buoyed the Tigers’ run to a Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV postseason berth last spring. As good as he has been on the mound, Lomeli said he’s even better at shortstop.

Cantu can also swing the bat. He’s hitting over .400 for his career, and he and Antonio Bustos were the only Tigers with multiple hits Tuesday.

“As our ace, he gave us a chance to have a shot at it in the end,” Lomeli said. “We had chances the last three innings, and we finally took advantage of it at the end.”

Joey Mundt (2-1) was overpowering at the start. He fanned four in the first two innings.

Soon, the bats would warm to Mundt, who had one of his best starts of the season in defeat. The 6-foot-2 sophomore struck out nine but began to struggle with his control in the latter innings. He had five walks and plunked two batters.

Alec Espos turned a walk into a run in the fifth inning to make it 2-1.

In the seventh, the Tigers’ rally began with Ernesto Huizar, who was hit with a pitch. He scored on Mendes’ two-out single to tie score 2-2.

Ferreira won the game on the next at-bat, roping the winning hit into left field.

“Facing a guy like Joey, who is one of the top guys in the area, it says a lot about these guys,” Lomeli said. “We had good at-bats and started making play when we needed them.

“At times, we didn’t help out Santiago when we should have. He had to fight out of errors in the first. That’s something we have to clean up.”

This story was originally published March 29, 2016 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Patterson baseball ‘can do’ with Santiago Cantu in lineup."