Healdsburg’s Greyhounds baseball team is looking forward to the playoff season, hoping that their near-misses during the regular schedule bring them the credibility they deserve.
“We swept Santa Rosa, swept St. Vincent’s, swept Piner,” said coach Mark Domenichelli. The day before, the Hounds had made the Piner Prospectors look helpless in the May 8 game at Rec Park, with a 20-2 win. Though the game was ended by the mercy rule in the fifth inning, truth be told the final result was telegraphed in the second inning when Healdsburg added 11 runs to its first-inning two, to put the score at 13-0.
The Piner team finally got on the board in the top of the fifth, but only after another big Healdsburg inning brought seven more across the plate. Leading the charge was second baseman Frank Rea who scored four runs, as Mason Radelfinger and Dillan Jocius crossed the plate three times each.
Only two teams in their league, the NBL-Redwood, have gotten the better of the Greyhounds this year: first-place Analy and second-place Montgomery. The NBL playoffs come up this week, starting with Analy vs. Healdsburg on May 13, and the final game on Friday May 15, which pits the winner of that game against the winner of the Montgomery-Santa Rosa game for the league championship.
Baseball fans take note: The NBL-Oak playoff follows the same schedule, and Friday, May 15, finds both sub-leagues playing for their championship at Rec Park here in Healdsburg. The Redwood teams face off at about 4:30pm, the Oak teams at 7pm.
However, Domenichelli is pretty happy with the team fielded this year. “It’s been another great year,” he said. “And I’ll tell you this: This group of seniors I had, I’ve had five of them for all four years of high school. They never played JV baseball.”
Those players, and others, have delivered record-setting seasons for Healdsburg baseball. Pitcher Alex Mauro-Manos recorded 21 wins, Isaiah Robles had 38 hits and Henry Smith drove in 29 runs as of last Friday’s game. But it was Hayden Mariani who stood out, breaking three school records with 88 hits, 86 runs and 40 stolen bases.
“It’s funny because if you think about it, they won 65 games in their baseball career at Healdsburg High School, which is the most by any team. That’s an unbelievable stat,” Domenichelli said.
Domenichelli has coached Healdsburg baseball for many of his 27 years with the school as a kinesiology (PE) teacher, but he still finds reason to look ahead to next year when several key players will return, despite the senior-heavy lineup he’s worked with this year. Among them are Damon Smith, Anthony Espinoza, pitcher Noah Wong and Rea, a superb three-sport athlete who will be a senior next year.
But first come the league playoffs, and the following week the division tournament. As they say in the game, “Keep your eye on the ball.”
