ARTICLE FROM SACRAMENTO BEE FOR GOLDEN ERA 18U PITCHER, JORDAN DURRANCE
GALT — Sierra pitcher
Jordan Durrance knew he was tinkering with perfection midway through the fourth
inning Tuesday.
So did his teammates.
With nine outs
separating Durrance from program history, an eerie hush fell over the Sierra
dugout. The baseball chatter
stopped and Durrance, a soft-spoken senior, drifted off onto an island.
The silence was
deafening.
“Things got pretty
quiet,” he said. “Everything stopped. I think they knew. “After the fourth,
going into the fifth, I realized it was possible. I tried to keep it out of my
mind. I was in zone.”
Was he ever.
Durrance struck out 12
batters in his first-ever perfect game and helped his own cause with an RBI
single in the seventh as the Timberwolves rolled to a 4-0 non-league win at
Galt. Sierra pounded out
seven hits, and held a 3-0 lead after five.
Brandon Proctor roped
a two-run single in the fourth, and a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded in the
fifth stretched the Timberwolves’ lead to three. It was all the run support
Durrance needed.
And he didn’t need
much.
The lanky left-hander
threw just 84 pitches and only found himself behind in the count twice. Each
time, he roared back with a strikeout. “It was very exciting.
I was really happy for Jordan,” Sierra coach Jack Thomson said. “He threw three
pitches for a strike and worked ahead in the count. When you do that, you’re
pitching.
“Afterwards, I told
(the team) we witnessed something pretty special. This doesn’t happen very
often.”
It was a first for
Thomson, who has coached Manteca-area high schools for 28 seasons. A few had come close.
Robby Woods was the
closest. In 1986, when Thomson
roamed the dugout as Manteca High’s skipper, Woods came within one out of
perfection.
Then it happened.
With two outs in the
seventh, and after retiring the first 20 batters he had faced, Woods issued a
walk.
He settled for a
no-hitter. Durrance, on the other
hand, wouldn’t be denied his first perfect game — as nerve-racking as it was. “I was battling,” he
said. Second baseman Jake Rovig
solidified the feat with a putout on a sharply hit ground ball.
Sierra's Durrance is
perfect
