Fillmore, Calabasas Tie Under Cover of Darkness

Calabasas and Fillmore highs played baseball for 3 hours and 4 minutes Friday. But when the Frontier League game at Fillmore was finally halted, both teams found themselves where they had been at the beginning: all tied up.

Calabasas and Fillmore were tied, 5-5, after nine innings when the umpires called the game because of darkness. And it seemed fitting that the game ended in a tie because both teams’ performances were almost identical.

The numbers bore out the equality of the affair: five runs, 11 hits, two errors for Calabasas; five runs, 10 hits, two errors for Fillmore.

Coming into the game Fillmore (6-1-1, 2-0-1 in league play), The Times’ 10th-ranked area team, figured to have little trouble with Calabasas (3-4-1, 1-2-1). The Flashes, playing their first game in 14 days, had figured on a relatively easy day against the league’s fourth-place team.

But Calabasas was not intimidated by burly Anthony Chessani, Fillmore’s starting pitcher, jumping to a 3-0 lead on a run-scoring single by Paul Johnson, a sacrifice bunt by Brian Bruskrud and an RBI single by Keith Slettedahl.

In the bottom of the fifth, Calabasas starter Paul Johnson tired after striking out eight batters in four-plus innings. He walked the first three batters in the fifth before giving way to Bruskrud.

Bruskrud coaxed Jose-Luis Lomeli into hitting a slow grounder to third, but Calabasas’ Steve Kaufman booted the ball and two runs scored. After the next two batters struck out, the tying run scored when Kaufman again booted a grounder.

Trailing, 5-3, in the top of the seventh, Calabasas rallied to force another tie.

A run-scoring double by Alex Armacost and another run-scoring single by Slettedahl (who finished four for five with two RBIs) tied the score. From there, Bruskrud held the fort, retiring Fillmore’s Pokey Sanchez and Art Sosa with the bases loaded in the ninth inning.

“The Frontier League is getting all bunched up,” Calabasas Coach Bob Wade said. “And we’ll be right there.”