In a thrilling WCAL matchup on Wednesday, St. Ignatius used a complete game shutout by senior Collin Monsour and homerun by Jack Stinn to upset the St. Francis Lancers by a final score of 1-0. This was St. Francis' first WCAL loss and only their second loss on the season.

This game was dominated by outstanding pitching performances by Monsour and Mark Cardinalli from St. Francis. The only real threat of the game in the first 6 innings came when St. Ignatius loaded the bases before Cardinalli induced a 4-6-3 double play to end the threat.

The usually electric bats of St. Francis were quieted by Monsour, who used 95 pitches to complete his five hit shutout of the third ranked team in the state of California (No. 1 in NorCal). He also struck out six and did not allow a walk.

On St. Francis and Monsour's performance, head coach Matthew Stecher said, "It's amazing. They have an amazing battery that comes up to the plate and Collin is our best pitcher. He's first in our rotation. He's been great all season. This is just another great performance from him."

Aside from the second inning rally by the Wildcats, no runner for either team successfully advanced past second base for the first six innings. Both pitchers were very stingy in allowing base runners as there were only nine hits combined and zero walks.

When it seemed as if this game was going into the bottom of the seventh inning scoreless, Stinn stepped in for the Wildcats. On a 1-0 count, he blasted a homerun right off the scoreboard in deep left field for the only extra base hit of the game, and would be the only run of the game.

When asked about Stinn's homer, Stecher had this to say: "It's as clutch as it gets. Jack has been struggling a little bit, but he works hard, he gets better, he made adjustments throughout the game. He made adjustments going into that last at-bat and he came up very big for us."

The homerun in the top of the 7th would turn out to be the only blemish on Cardinalli's day. The 6-foot-2, 190 pound junior pitched six innings while surrendering just four hits, no walks, while throwing 88 pitches.

However, the Lancers would not go down silently. Senior Trevor Bettencourt started the top of the 7th inning with an infield single. After a pinch runner was inserted, the Lancers were unable to get a sacrifice bunt down cleanly, which was caught by third baseman Kyle Tillinghast.

St. Francis got a clean single by Hunter Simmons, which put Lancers on first and second base with only one out. After a fly out to right field and the runner advancing to third base, the stage was set for another dramatic comeback by the Lancers.

In an 0-2 count and after several foul balls, Monsour finally got the final out of the game when he retired Jeff Amaral on a deep fly ball to right field.

This win improves the Wildcats' record to 13-6-1 and 7-3-1 in WCAL play. Not only was this the first WCAL loss of the year for St. Francis, but it was the first loss to a team from the state of California. The Lancers' overall record goes to 21-2-1. Both teams return to WCAL action on Friday when St. Francis travels to Serra and St. Ignatius opposes Riordan at home.

"It gives us momentum definitely," finished Stecher. "We have two wins in a row against two very good teams. We still have some things to work on, but our guys know that and they feel good about what they can do. It does give us confidence with the win. We are going to try build on this for the last couple games."

St. Ignatius displayed that it is truly a dangerous team, and could be a force in the WCAL tournament and beyond.