Orange County Prep Baseball : Capistrano Valley Hitters Wear Out La Quinta

With their pitching staffs both overworked and weary, the last thing coaches Bob Zamora (Capistrano Valley High School) and Dave Demarest (La Quinta) wanted Wednesday was for their Bolsa Grande Easter tournament championship game to go into extra innings.

Fortunately, Cougar senior Nathan Call put the game--and all the pitchers--to rest in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI triple that lifted Capistrano Valley to an 11-10 win and the tournament title at Bolsa Grande High School.

The Cougars (7-4), who fought off a 6-1 deficit to defeat Pacifica, 11-6, in Tuesday’s semifinal, trailed, 8-2, Wednesday but scored six runs in the fourth inning to tie the game and two in the fifth to go ahead, 10-8.

The Aztecs scored twice in the seventh on a fielder’s choice and an RBI single by Troy Paulsen. But Call, following a one-out walk to Casey Durham, slammed a Terry Bryant pitch over center fielder Jeff Wood’s head to score Durham with the winning run.

It was Call’s second RBI triple and third hit of the game. Mike Pierce added three hits and three RBIs for Capistrano Valley, which had 14 hits. La Quinta had 16 hits, including three each by Bryant and Joey Dunn, and two hits and three RBIs by Mark Dion.

It figured to be a hitter’s day. The Cougars started their No. 5 pitcher, sophomore Paul Wend, and he failed to get anyone out.

Wend, a right-hander, faced five batters and allowed four hits, a walk and three runs before being replaced by Brett Snyder, who had pitched seven innings against John Glenn on Monday.

Snyder limited the Aztecs to one run in three innings, but Zamora didn’t want him to throw too much, so he lifted him in favor of Rob Sheehan, who hadn’t pitched in a varsity game this season.

Sheehan was ripped for four runs and four hits in the fourth but settled down to pitch a scoreless fifth and sixth. When he ran into trouble in the seventh, Zamora brought in Scott Stark, who had pitched five innings against Estancia on Monday.

Stark gave up Paulsen’s RBI single but got Dion to ground out and Bryant to fly out to end the inning.

La Quinta also relied on some tired arms. Randy McGlenn, who threw seven innings Monday, relieved starter Mike Wilson in the third inning and was hit hard in the fourth. Bryant only pitched an inning Tuesday but didn’t look very sharp Wednesday and suffered the loss.

In addition, the Aztecs were hurt by the defensive absence of Paulsen, who normally plays shortstop but was relegated to designated hitter because of a sore arm.

Dunn, playing in Paulsen’s place, collided with second baseman Tim Park in the first inning during an attempted double play. Both players covered second base on a grounder back to the pitcher and the collision jarred the ball loose from Park. The Cougars went on to score two unearned runs.

With two runners on in the fourth, Chris Ashbach hit a hard grounder to Dunn, but the ball skipped by the shortstop, allowing a run to score. Capistrano Valley then scored five more runs in the inning.

“We didn’t turn the double plays and they did,” Demarest said. “We’ve usually been the team to capitalize on other teams’ mistakes, but every time we make a mistake this year, we pay for it.”

The Cougars committed three errors, but they also turned double plays in the second, third and sixth innings. Pierce, the catcher, had a big play when he threw out Paulsen, who was attempting to steal second in the fifth inning.

In the third-place game:

Rancho Alamitos 6, Pacifica 1--Senior right-hander Roger Carter allowed just three hits in five innings to lead the Vaqueros over the Mariners at Bolsa Grande High. Craig Paquette hit a two-run homer in the first inning and Mike Willey added three hits for Rancho Alamitos (6-4). Pacifica is 6-5-1.

In the fifth-place game:

Leuzinger 7, Santiago 2--Jose Salazar pitched the Olympians to the win at Pacifica High. The Cavaliers are 7-4.