Baseball: Mesa hammers Laguna Beach

Tony Altobelli

LAGUNA BEACH - Costa Mesa High’s baseball team used 20 singles, two

doubles, two home runs, on 10-run inning and early missed opportunities

by Laguna Beach to blow away the host Artists, 18-4, in Pacific Coast

League action Tuesday afternoon.

Coach Kirk Bauermeister found the secret to success when going up against

Laguna Beach and its 247-foot right field fence.

Practice against hitting the long ball.

“When you play here you have a tendency to dip and try to yank everything

out of the park,” Bauermeister said. “So in practice, we did a no-pop

drill where we just tried to hit everything on the ground or line shots

to the opposite field. It definitely worked today.”

Leading the onslaught was junior Steven Shores, who went 5 for 5 with a

home run, five runs scored and an RBI. Assisting Shores was Nick Cabico

and Dan Hunter, who each had two hits and three RBIs, Lyle Rourex (three

hits, two runs scored) and Antony Grubisich (three hits, two runs and two

RBIs).

“It’s not often you can get 24 hits in a game, that’s for sure,”

Bauermeister said proudly. “We’ve had some games where we’ve hit the ball

hard and they just didn’t fall in for us, so I guess we were due for a

big game offensively.”

But perhaps the most crucial moment of the game came when NO runs were

scored.

After Mesa failed to produce in the first inning, Laguna Beach (3-6, 2-2

in league) slammed two doubles and a single in the Artists’ first

at-bats, but failed to put a run on the board.

Catcher Galel Fajardo threw out a base runner trying to steal second for

an out and later tagged out a runner trying to score on a ground ball

Franco at first.

“When they had first and third with no outs and didn’t score, I told the

players to take advantage of that opportunity,” Bauermeister said. “We

needed to respond to that with some runs of our own.”

The Mustangs (5-3-1, 2-1) did just that, scoring five times in the

second, all with two outs.

Hits by Cabico, Yourex, Josh Little and Carlos Franco drove in the five

Mesa runs and gave the Mustangs the lead for good.

Laguna Beach trimmed the lead to, 5-2, thanks to a two-RBI single by John

Lerdugo in the second inning.

Four straight Mesa singles, including a two-RBI shot by Fajardo gave the

Mustangs a five-run cushion in the third.

Shores’ blast, a solo shot, came in the fifth inning, but the real

fireworks came in the seventh.

Leading comfortably, 8-4, the Mustangs sent 15 men to the plate, scoring

10 runs on 11 hits. The biggest blow of the inning was a three-run blast

by Hunter.

Seven different players had RBIs in the seventh inning alone and the

1-through-8 spots in the batting order had at least two hits in the game.

The Mustangs will look to keep the hot hitting going against rival Corona

del Mar Friday at 3:15 p.m. at CdM.

PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE

Costa Mesa 18, Laguna Beach 4

Costa Mesa 052 010 (10) - 18 24 2

Laguna Beach 020 101 0 - 4 11 2 Stevens, Haubrick (2), Cabico (5), Franco (6) and Fajardo; Lerdugo, Bobst

(6), Dy-Buncio (7) and Gagnet. W - Haubrick, 3-0. L - Lerdugo. 2B -

O’Keefe (LB), Gagnet (LB), Little (CM), Franco (CM). HR - Shores (CM),

Hunter (CM).