SACRAMENTO — Since the big UCLA-bound senior spent a portion of his summer traveling to play in elite tournaments around the country, it wasn’t too surprising when Matt Trask came up huge for the Davis High baseball team on the first day of the Boras Classic at Dan McAuliffe Field in Sacramento.

Behind Trask’s 6-for-7 performance at the plate, which included three doubles and five RBIs, the Blue Devils split games against a pair of strong opponents on Tuesday.

A 5-3 morning win over Stockdale (Bakersfield) assured DHS a top-eight finish at the tournament, but the Devils dropped a 5-3 decision to Clovis West later in the day.

Davis (9-6-1) took early leads in both games, each time scoring in the top of the first inning, before allowing its opponents to score late runs.

Against Stockdale, the locals got an RBI single from Trask in the first and a run-scoring double from the slugger in the sixth, then put together a big seventh inning.

Pinch hitter Ian Miramontes started the frame by reaching on an error and John Ariola followed with a single. One out later, sophomore Ryan Kreidler brought Quentin McCray (who had run for Miramontes) and Ariola home with a double, then came around to score on Trask’s double, putting the Blue Devils up 5-1.

Kreidler was 3-for-4 in the game, then added a double in the later outing.

“Trask and Kreidler both had big days,” said DHS coach Dan Ariola. “This tournament is a nice break from Delta Valley Conference, but this is a great tournament with a lot of great teams, so we want to have a good showing.”

Despite getting down four runs, Stockdale would not go quietly — as it had for most of the game thanks to the strong pitching of Devil starter Brett Bloomfield — putting up three runs in the bottom of the seventh. In fact, relief pitcher Trey Golston had to strike out a batter with the bases loaded to close out the win.

And against Clovis West, Davis was unable to shut the door.

The locals scored three runs in the first three innings, all on RBIs from Trask, but could not hold on to a 3-2 lead despite a strong pitching performance by junior varsity call-up Pierce Tujo.

The sophomore allowed two runs in the bottom of the second, then held CWHS in check until he was lifted after walking the first batter of the sixth inning. Three runs later, the Blue Devils were 1-1 on the day.

“Pierce pitched a great game,” Dan Ariola said. “We just couldn’t close it out. We didn’t play well in the late innings. But we are playing tight games against good teams.”

That will continue Wednesday as Davis heads back to Sacramento to take on Pleasant Grove at 4 p.m.

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