BCHS' Noah Granillo bursts out of slump, delivers game-tying grand slam vs. Garces

May 5—Stepping up to the plate against Garces Memorial Tuesday night, Noah Granillo was literally in a fantasy come to life.

Granillo, a senior on the Bakersfield Christian baseball team, had an almost unreal opportunity in front of him. With his team trailing 7-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning, he walked into a scenario that had played out in his head several times growing up.

With the bases loaded and just one out, he had the opportunity to tie the game with just one swing.

"It's something every little league player would dream of," he said. "Bottom of the seventh, bases loaded, down four runs."

At times this season, though, Granillo admits that was a situation he may have shied away from.

After recording a hit in BCHS' first game, Granillo didn't get another in the next four, which left his batting average at .077. He's found more of a rhythm since and is currently hitting .256, but even as his production has improved, he says he hasn't always felt like himself.

So with nerves jangled entering a most high-pressure situation Tuesday, a very simple message from assistant coach Tim Hough helped put him at ease.

"I've been struggling a little bit with self-confidence," Granillo said. "But coming to the plate with the bases loaded, my coach just came up to me and smiled and said 'Have some fun.' And I went up to the plate with a smile on my face and that was pretty much it."

Relaxed and waiting on a fastball, Granillo got what he was looking for, turning on a 1-1 pitch and driving it to left-center field. Initially thinking the ball would stay in play, he sprinted out of the batter's box, only to be slowed down by the elated cheers of his teammates, who mobbed him at the plate after his game-tying shot had cleared the fence.

"It had that college baseball, or sort of like a World Series atmosphere," he said of the celebration. "Our team chemistry is amazing and just coming back in the dugout after doing something that I've never done before. It was a surreal feeling."

It wasn't the last home run celebration Granillo and his teammates would be a part of. After the grand slam extended the game in the seventh, Manny Herrera ended it in the eighth with a walk-off, two-run blast that secured a 9-7 win for the Eagles.

Granillo's athletic future is up in the air after high school. Planning to attend Azusa Pacific University, he may try to walk on to the baseball team, but says he can also envision a future where his playing days wrap up after high school.

With time potentially running out, Granillo says he is fully dialed in for the final weeks of his high school career, which he hopes will crescendo with a deep postseason run.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," he said.