Sonoma Academy pitchers get sixth consecutive no-hitter

The hits just keep coming. Or, actually, the hits just aren’t coming at all. At least when you’re facing Sonoma Academy baseball pitchers, that is.

The North Central League II Coyotes have, again, no-hit an opponent, downing Tomales, 9-1, Tuesday at Sonoma Academy’s home field of Doyle Park in Santa Rosa.

The seven-inning game gives the Sonoma Academy pitching staff a six-game streak of not allowing an opponent to reach base via a base hit. That’s 36 innings in total.

Coach Dave Cox said his team is finally getting a little giddy about the accomplishment.

“We didn’t talk about it at all during the game,” he said of Tuesday’s win against the 1-6 Braves.

The victory was the second time Sonoma Academy victimized Tomales during the tretch, which dates to a 13-0 win April 7 against Technology High in five innings. Three of the six games have been shortened by the 10-run mercy rule.

“Everyone knows about it, of course,” Cox said.

“But we didn’t talk about until the last couple outs. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we can do this again.’ It was somewhat euphoric.”

The streak is garnering more media attention as it continues. Reporters from the San Francisco CBS station were there interviewing players on Tuesday and they cut in live to part of the game during their 6 p.m. newscast, Cox said. USA Today sports has run updates.

The unusual streak hasn’t been free of controversy.

In the fifth game, a 3-0 win against Rincon Valley Christian on April 19, a high-hopper that dribbled off Sonoma Academy third baseman Ethan Jones’ hand was ruled an error.

It wasn’t a gimme play, but nor did it require an extraordinary effort to field it cleanly.

There was considerable debate among observers and those who watched the video afterward whether the fielder could have handled it.

But since Sonoma Academy was the home team, Cox was the official scorer and his ruling of error stands. So the streak remained intact.

CalHi sports, which compiles high school sports records, has no category for consecutive no-hit games, so it’s unclear if Sonoma Academy’s exploits constitute a record.

In all, seven Coyotes pitchers have combined for the streak: Jordan Salmonsen, Dylan De La Montanya, Jones, Kyle Duchynski, Byron Spars, Oscar McCauley and Dan Brown.

At the same time as the Coyotes were stringing together their streak, pitchers from St. Vincent of Petaluma were quietly doing the same.

The Mustangs no-hit four consecutive opponents from April 12-20 until relinquishing three hits in a 15-0 win against Tomales April 22 to end their run.

Both St. Vincent and Sonoma Academy are 5-0 in the NCL II.

In Tuesday’s win against Tomales, the Braves took a 1-0 lead in the first inning without benefit of a hit.

Starting pitcher Duch­ynski walked the leadoff batter, who stole second and was balked to third.

A sacrifice fly to right field brought him home for a 1-0 lead.

But Duchynski found his rhythm and struck out four in the next four innings before De La Montanya took over and struck out all six batters he faced, although one reached base when a third strike got past the catcher.

Brown pitched part of an inning before McCauley struck out the side in the seventh to nail down the victory.

Sonoma Academy’s no-hit streak will face its toughest challenge yet on Friday - a showdown of league unbeatens against St. Vincent. First pitch is at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Doyle Park.

“It will be a tough matchup,” Cox acknowledged. “They’ve won league every year it’s been in existence. But we beat them once last year and it was very emotional.”

Under coach Gary Galloway, who just notched his 500th career baseball win, the Mustangs have lost only three league games since 2012.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.