Baseball defeated Mountain 7-5 in Game 1 of 3 of the League Championship Series behind continuous production up and down the lineup throughout the game.

After Mountain View scored a run in the top of the second inning, the Vikings answered quickly and took a 2-1 lead. Ben Cleasby (‘17) leadoff the inning with a double and Angus Stayte (‘17) immediately tripled him home. Then, Jonathan Gottlieb (‘18) hit a double down the left field line to score the second run of the inning. Unfortunately, however, after starting the inning with three extra base hits in a row, Paly failed to keep the rally going.

Vikings’ starter Ryan Chang (‘17), meanwhile, was dealing. Chang pitched a complete game, giving up five runs and just one walk.

“That’s just Chang,” Stayte said. “Chang does that week in and week out so that’s really what we expect from him now.”

Paly rallied again in the bottom of the fourth. The Vikings had four singles in the inning by Cleasby, Stayte, Josh Kasevich (‘19) and Jackson Hall (‘18) plus two walks which netted four more runs to extend the lead to 6-1.

By the time the top of the seventh came around Paly lead 7-2 and Chang was still on the mound. Mountain View was able to mount a bit of a rally and score three runs, but in the end Chang closed the game out to secure the 7-5 victory.

“We did a good job, because we knew it was going to be a pitcher that wasn’t going to throw very hard,” Stayte said. “So we did a good job going the other way. After we figured [the pitcher] out, we got rolling from there and put up a good amount of runs.”

“Solid defense, solid offense,” Kasevich said. “We hit the ball well, stuck to our approach. I was just hoping to drive the ball to right field, stay back, sit on a curveball and get up in the box a little bit. We have to come out tomorrow and have a good practice and go get them Thursday and try to win it there.”

Paly will look to clinch the league title Thursday, as they play at Wilcox at 4 o’clock.