By Paige Butler and Andrew Murphy
The Benicia Varsity Baseball team played a strenuous schedule against many difficult teams in and out of their league. This season, the Panthers put up a pretty good fight against their opponents taking only a handful of losses to Clayton Valley, College Park(2), Acalanes(2) and Campolindo. Benicia played 6-6 ( six wins and six losses) in the league and 15-9 overall.
In Benicia’s first ten games, they started off 5-5. Towards the middle of the season, Benicia’s Varsity team went on an eight game winning streak moving their record up to 13-6. The Panthers took the fifth seed in the 2022 North Coast Section Division II Playoff series.
Hunter Coombs led the Panthers in hitting this season with a .455 batting average with 27 hits and two home runs. Diego Menjivar was the go-to ace for Benicia with a pitch record of 5-4, leading the team in most strikeouts with 73 strikeouts; while only giving up 23 earned runs in 42.2 innings pitched. You can’t forget the two way threat of Ben Saitz. He led the team with three home runs and a .422 batting average. Saitz was exceptional on the mound as well. With 24.2 innings pitched he only gave up four earned runs with 27 strikeouts. Satiz was fifth best player on the team with a low earned run average of 1.135.
Overall the Benicia Panthers had a great season going 15-9 giving them a 63% win percentage.
Wednesday May 18th, the Panthers take on Northgate in the first round of the 2022 North Coast Section Division II Playoff series.
beniciapaw.com 