Romo, Murphy become Bonsall's first all-league baseball players

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

Bonsall High School added baseball for 2022, and two seniors became the first-ever Legionnaires to receive all-league baseball honors.

David Romo was selected to the Patriot League first team. Garret Murphy was placed on the all-league second team.

“They were both hard-working players,” said Bonsall coach Danny Mencias.

Bonsall’s overall 4-12-1 record included a 2-6 figure in Patriot League play. The league had five teams and Bonsall finished in fourth place.

“We couldn’t have gotten those wins without them pretty much,” Mencias said.

Both all-league players were among Bonsall’s pitchers. Romo also played shortstop while Murphy would play shortstop, second base and third base as well as pitcher.

“You could see a lot of growth in their pitching,” Mencias said.

Romo struck out 35 opponents while on the mound. “We could always rely on him pitching three to four innings,” Mencias said. “He basically kept his pitch counts down towards the end.”

Murphy was credited with 17 pitching strikeouts. “He struggled at the beginning, but by the end he was closing our games,” Mencias said. “Garret actually developed a couple of pitches towards the end of the season.”

While on the mound Murphy also picked off a baserunner. “He got comfortable with picking off players,” Mencias said.

Murphy was also comfortable with pickoff moves from the other side – he was successful on all 11 of his stolen base attempts to lead the team in that statistic. Romo tried to steal three times and advanced on all three occasions.

Romo led the team with 29 hits, with 23 runs scored, with 33 runs batted in, with six doubles, and with seven home runs. Murphy had 18 hits including four doubles, 16 runs scored, and 12 runs batted in.

“We’re happy with what we got,” Mencias said of having two all-league players.

Romo and Murphy were among nine seniors on the 2022 team. “We’re going to be rebuilding next year,” Mencias said. “I look forward to developing our guys and seeing what they can do next year.”