One hit and a walk away from a perfect game, the Palo Alto High School baseball team (5-0 SCVAL) held Homestead High School (3-1 SCVAL) to no runs, beating the Mustangs 8-0 at home today.

“We had good hits with runners in scoring position, we didn’t make any errors in the field and Ben [Sneider (’12)] pitched well,” center fielder Christoph Bono (’11), who buried a double in the left-center gap to start off Paly’s hitting in the first inning, said.

Paly came out strong in the bottom of the first, jumping ahead 2-0 with RBIs from first baseman T.J. Braff (’11) and catcher Christian Lonsky (’12).

The second inning extended the two run pattern. After hitting a single, right fielder Jeff Cohen (’11) stole second, advanced to third off an error and scored on a past pitch. With bases loaded, Braff grounded out, sending right fielder Cory Tenanes (’11) home and bringing the score 4-0.

“[Homestead] was suppose to be one of the better teams in the league and we had a pretty good day at practice yesterday, so I’m glad it paid off,” Bono said.

After a hitless third inning, Bono, shortstop Austin Braff (’12) and his older brother T.J. all chipped in RBIs to end the inning with Paly leading 7-0.

In the sixth inning, pinch hitter George Brown (’11) batted in the last run, to finalize the score, 8-0.

On the other side of the ball, Homestead managed to send only three batters to the plate for the last six straight innings.  The first inning was the only time four Mustangs got up to bat after Paly pitcher Ben Sneider (’12) walked second baseman Yuki Umeda (’12).  No Mustang reached second base.

“I think today I just focused up a little more and knew that these guys were a team that could really compete with us for our league championship,” Sneider said.  “I really wanted to make sure we sent a message and really asserted ourselves as defending league champions.”

No errors in the field finalized Paly’s domination against Homestead, as the Vikings finished 8-0 and remained undefeated in league.

“It’s really reassuring when you know your guys are always going to make the play behind you because then you don’t always have to do it by yourself,” Sneider said.

The team was proud with its performance, but still sees some weak points of both its offense and defense.

“We also need to stop hitting pop-ups because that’s a big difference,” Cohen said.  “Our team’s pretty fast so if we can keep the ball on the ground we can score a lot more runs.”

The Vikings face-off against the Mustangs again at 3:30 p.m. on Friday at Homestead.