SAN DIEGO COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Oceanside Bats Overwhelm Kearny

Both teams continue to have problems on defense but Oceanside’s hitting appears strong enough to compensate. The Pirates batters did just that Monday, defeating Kearny, 10-4, at San Marcos in the AA Division of the 40th Lions/Mike Morrow baseball tournament.

“We haven’t played well defensively in the tournament,” Oceanside Coach Dave Barrett said. “We’ve given up some runs we shouldn’t have. But we’ve been swinging the bats well which can cover up a lot of sins.”

Oceanside (10-2-1) is proving to be a come-from-behind team, and Monday was no exception. Trailing, 4-2, after three innings, the Pirates scored five runs in the fifth en route to their seventh consecutive victory.

Saul Gutierrez’s double scored Terry Vaughn and advanced Kenya Hunt to third. Jose Avila then hit a single scoring Hunt and Gutierrez. Scott Walker followed that with his first home run of the season.

Although Walker hit “a bunch” of home runs during the winter league and a few in scrimmages, Barrett said Walker has been in a “swinging slump but has done a lot better lately”.

With no outs and five runs across in the Oceanside fifth, Kearny’s Germaine Matthews replaced Rob Fragoso (3-4) on the mound. Matthews struck out the first batter, and the Komet defense kept two of Oceanside’s next four batters from reaching base.

Kearny (7-9) made five errors contributing to 13 extra bases by Oceanside runners. Andy Acevedo stole five bases, which ranks third in the Section record book, during is four at-bats.

“We continue to make errors in the infield. We’ve had problems with errors all season,” Kearny Coach John Gunther said. “When they got ahead we stopped doing anything offensively.”

Said Barrett: “We like to run, and we have people who can. We emphasize that and have had a lot of success running in the past. We’ve never stolen that many bases before though.”

Trailing 1-0 after the first inning, Kearny went ahead with three runs in the bottom of the second. Scott Goligoski tripled, sending leadoff hitter Fragroso home. Goligoski scored on a single by Aaron Springer, who scored on a throwing error.

Oceanside, 2-0 in the tournament, has clinched its group, and will play Wednesday morning in a semifinal game after meeting San Marcos today.