Familiar tune

Roger Carlson

COSTA MESA - Anyone with a working knowledge of Estancia High

baseball will readily confirm the Eagles are far better than recent

years, but they still haven’t turned the corner and first-year Coach Doug

Deats has a hard time finding satisfaction with “improvement.”

His idea of improvement is victory, and that didn’t happen Monday as his

Eagles fell to visiting Brawley in nonleague play, 6-5.

While the loss was the 12th in 20 games this year, it was also pretty

typical in that the Eagles had a victory within their grasp, only to see

it fade on the final blow, a line drive with eyes for the shortstop with

two on and two out.

Armando Ortiz, who retired the final 12 batters after giving up six runs

on seven singles, didn’t get a lot of help on the defensive side of the

ledger as Estancia was guilty of five miscues.

Ortiz struck out four and walked none.

“He deserved better,” said Deats in an echoing manner.

The Eagles took a 3-1 lead in the first inning when Ortiz opened with a

“fall-down” triple, C.K. Green walked, David Akiva singled to right and

Brent Davis slapped a double over the bag and down the right-field line.

Brawley (10-10) did not have a single player with more than a single, but

a three-run third inning proved decisive with four singles and an

outfield error doing the damage.

Estancia scored a single marker in the third inning, but left three

stranded, and another single tally came in the fifth when Matt Mueller

singled, advanced to third on wild pitches and scored on a base hit by

A.J. Perkins.

NONLEAGUE

Brawley 6, Estancia 5

Brawley 113 100 0 - 6 7 2 Estancia 301 010 0 - 5 9 5

Magana, Williams (5), Romo (7) and Buckner; Ortiz and Davis. W -

Williams. L - Ortiz. Sv - Romo. 2B - Davis (E). 3B - Ortiz (E).