No-Hit Charlie
By Jesse Phelps

It seemed like an ordinary day and it almost seemed like an ordinary game at Thacher School on Friday afternoon, except for one thing: none of the hitters from Kilpatrick could reach base.

One by one they came to the plate and one by one Thacher hurler Charlie Munzig set them down until, at the end of it all, those in the Thacher dugout could only look at the day one way. Perfect. Well, pretty much.

Munzig, a senior, faced the minimum 21 batters over seven innings for his first no-hitter. In their 3-0 victory, the Toads had some trouble solving the tough pitching of Kilpatrick's Michael Bravo, Michael Lajeunesse and Omar Santana.

The Kilpatrick trio notched nine strikeouts on the afternoon to Munzig's two while Munzig was content to baffle the Kilpatrick lineup with well-located fastballs and a steady diet of looping curveballs, forcing a variety of softly hit grounders and flies.

Behind him, the defense played nearly flawlessly. The only error came in the first inning when, after Santana struck out, Toad Cameron Robertson misplayed a ball hit by Kilpatrick shortstop Rene Gonzales in left field. It flew over his head, allowing Gonzales to reach second base. But Robertson atoned on the following play.

Lajeunesse, batting third, blooped a soft shot over the head of shortstop Dillon Valadez. Robertson, playing back, ran in and launched himself. Somehow, he came up with a sliding grab and flipped the ball to the infield, where Gonzales, running all the way on the play, was doubled off second base.

He was the last base runner Kilpatrick would have.

"Charlie's curveball was working today and it kept them off balance," said Thacher coach Rich Mazzola after the game.

Bravo, starting on the mound for Kilpatrick (3-5), also looked excellent for three innings. Facing a team averaging 13 runs per game in its first three games of the year, he struck out the first five Toad hitters to face him and retired the first eight in order before suffering minor control issues in the third. Toad nine-hole hitter Lee Shurtleff and leadoff man Gabe Yette drew consecutive two-out walks before second baseman Owili Eison struck out to end the inning.

But the Toads were patiently figuring Bravo out.

Thacher (4-0) scored its three runs on only four hits. Three of those hits and all of the runs came in the fourth inning. Munzing helped his own cause with a full-count single to start the inning after an eight-pitch at-bat and stole second base. Cleanup hitter Graham Douds moved Munzig to third on a slow grounder.
Catcher Brenton Sullivan then knocked a clean single up the middle for what turned out to be the game-winning RBI.

But the Toads weren't done. After Sullivan stole second, Mustang right fielder Matthew Donovan couldn't handle a ball off the bat of Robertson, who reached base on an error.
Valadez worked the count full, fouled off three pitches and reached on a walk, loading the bases for Toad first baseman Richard Smith.
On the second pitch from Bravo, Smith laced a shot up the middle for a two-run single, the final runs of the game.

Afterward, Munzig expressed appreciation for Sullivan's efforts behind the plate. "He's just calling good pitches and I'm just throwing whatever he calls. It's pretty fun to win it here on my home field," he said.

"We get out there and he gets real focused," Sullivan said of Munzig. "Once he gets focused, we just go to work."

Still, as Mazzola told his team in his post-game huddle, good pitching is only as good as the defense behind it. Munzig induced 10 fly-ball outs and eight ground ball outs, all but the one handled neatly by a team feeling what Mazzola called "no-hitter focus."

The players responded positively as he implored them to give him that focus for the rest of the season. "In a no-hitter, you want the ball hit to you because you're the one who wants to make the play on defense," he said. "And that's the kind of defense I need and that's the kind of attitude I need."

In the top of the seventh, with two outs separating Munzig from his moment, that defense came up big. Gonzales stepped to the plate again with one more chance to play spoiler. For a second time he made excellent contact, this time driving the ball deep into the gap in right center.

Yette and Shurtleff, both sprinting, converged from center and right, respectively. As the ball began to slice just short of the wall, Shurtleff stretched for a running grab to preserve the special moment.

Two grounders later, Munzig found himself awash in a crowd of excited teammates. He'd just recorded the first no-hitter of his high school career, a mere technicality away from a perfect game.

No runs, no hits, no walks: close enough to perfection on what started as a pretty ordinary day at Thacher School.

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

Back to sports

Back to the news