Blayne Ontiveros had been a huge part of Frontier High School’s success the past four years. A pitcher in high school, he is now the starting first baseman for the Bakersfield College Renegades baseball team in his first year at BC.
While at Frontier High, he had 317 at-bats, scored 90 runs, posted 106 hits, 117 RBIs, 30 doubles, 24 home runs and a career batting average of .353. While fielding in 88 games, he committed only 11 errors. He pitched in 194 innings, while compiling a 22-8 record with a 2.62 ERA, and threw for 189 strikeouts.
He currently holds Titan records in many categories, including most complete games in a season, lowest ERA (2.47 in 2010), most at bats in a season, most hits, most RBIs.
He pitched the first shutout in Titan history (East 2009), hit the first single in Titan history (Arvin 2008), has the first sacrifice fly in Titan history (Arvin 2008), has the first RBI in Titan history (Arvin 08), is the all-time home run leader in Titan history.
He was the first Titan selected to the all-league team in 2009 and 2010, and was all area in 2010.
He also earned the first Valley Championship win as a Pitcher in 2010. Since Ontiveros is slated to play first base for BC, and given his outstanding high school career as a pitcher, BC coach Tim Painton commented if he had any intentions of having him pitch for the Renegades this season.
“Blayne and I sat down as he came in this summer, and there’s a big transition from high school baseball to here,” he said.
“He felt like trying to handle one thing this year was going to be enough. He had some elbow problems in high school as well. It was his decision to play first base, and that’s what we’re going to do with him.
“He won’t pitch at all for us this year. We’ll revisit that this summer and see where it takes us next year.”
Painton talked about how Ontiveros started the season and played in his first game while not feeling well.
“He has been battling the flu, I don’t think we’ve seen him at full strength yet. He’s going through some growing pains as all freshmen do. He’s had some good spurts, and some bad at bats, but I think over time that’s all going to work itself out. He’ll figure the thing out and be a better productive player for us. I think any freshmen that walks in to this level of play goes through some growing pains, and he’s going through that a little bit right now. He’s going to be a great player for us, and like I said, he’ll make adjustments and figure this thing out as we go along,” said Painton.
Ontiveros also commented on the start of the season
“I had the flu. I thought it was food poisoning, but it ended up being the flu,” said Ontiveros.
“So it put me out a little bit, I was sick opening night, but I wanted to play Saturday. It was best that I didn’t play. I played the first game, and the second game I was worse than the day before, so I sat out the second game.
When referring back to the first game, Ontiveros recalled that at the beginning of the game he was OK, but it changed as the game progressed.
“I was fine at the start of the game ‘cause I had all the adrenaline going and everything, so I really didn’t feel anything, and about the sixth inning, I started having symptoms of wanting to like throw up and all that, but I played through it, didn’t think about it,” he said.
He also talked about his and the teams expectations this year.
“As a team, we have very high expectations, ‘cause we want to bring home conference that’s our number one goal right now, and then go on with that and hopefully win the final four if possible. So for me, it’s really not about me, it’s more about the team.”
“Whenever called upon to do a job, I want to hopefully succeed in it. Right now I’m hitting fifth but I can see myself jumping third to fifth. We kind of have an alternating line-up where the line-up could change any day, so right about third or fifth.”
He also talked about what kind of player he is.
“Kind of like a mixture of like a power hitter and basically an average hitter,” he said. “I could hit for power, but I like hitting for a high average also. I try to limit my strikeouts. I don’t strike out a whole lot, and I’m also real aggressive at the plate, so I don’t really walk a whole lot.
“When I see a fastball, I pretty much get a little antsy and go after it,” he said.
“I feel real confidence with our team, I think we all feel confidence with each other, and up and down the line-up, our pitching, our defense is pretty top notch.
“What’s cool about playing this year is, I don’t think BC has ever won a final four championship in all the years it’s been here, so we would like to be the first ones to bring that home.”