Baseball: Newport drops Regional opener

Joseph Boo

MORENO VALLEY - Newport Harbor, you’re not in Orange County

anymore.

Moreno Valley’s Sunnymead Field was an ungracious host for Newport

Harbor Baseball Association’s Bronco (11-12) All-Star Baseball team in

its first trip to the PONY League West Zone Regionals Friday.

Not only did Newport drop its opener, 6-2, to Corona, it was hurt by

what Newport felt was umpiring biased to the Riverside County

representative.

“Let me put it this way,” Newport Manager Kevin Heenan said. “For the

level of baseball we’re playing right now, I thought the umpiring was

inadequate.”

Newport suffered through a stingy strike zone, a balk, and a failed

stolen-base attempt. The balk was called because Newport’s pitcher leaned

toward home plate as he threw a pickoff throw to first base, That led to

Corona’s first run.

“I wouldn’t say the umpiring cost us the game,” Heenan said. “But it

did change the momentum of the game.”

Down, 2-0, in the fifth, Newport briefly took the momentum by tying

the game. Dennis Heenan got his third hit of the game with an RBI single

that scored Kurt Yacko, who reached on a fielder’s choice after a Tim

Cramer single.

After Heenan’s hit, Billy Munce ripped a line drive in the left-center

gap for a double. That brought Heenan home to tie the game.

Newport had a chance to take the lead in the fifth, but a would-be

base stealer was thrown out on an extremely close play. Instead, Corona

pounded out six hits in the seventh to win the game.

“This was a good game,” Heenan said. “We got two double plays, one

pickoff and one guy thrown out at first, and they made two double plays.

Except for that last inning, our guys did pretty good, and they played

hard.”

Yacko, Nick Frazier and Donnie Hunt also had hits for Newport, which

plays for survival today at Sunnymead, on 4 p.m.

A victory today sends Newport back on Sunday at 1 p.m. with two

victories necessary to stay alive.