Estancia gets a tough reality check

HUNTINGTON BEACH ? The Estancia High baseball team has improved enough from last year to think of itself as a CIF playoff-caliber team. After all, Estancia surpassed last year’s win total before the halfway point of the season.

But Friday, the Eagles found that drastic improvement doesn’t mean they can always hang with the best teams in the Golden West League.

First-place Ocean View, ranked No. 3 in CIF Southern Section Division III, had its way with Estancia pitching ? especially once starter Evan Van Geem left the game ? and took advantage of a stellar pitching performance by senior James Kang (3-1) in a 10-0 Golden West League victory over the Eagles.

Estancia (5-5, 1-2 in league) managed just four hits off Kang, who was not overpowering but spotted his pitches.

The Eagles did not have a baserunner until the third inning when second baseman Eddie Tomesak singled and took third on an error. The Eagles had runners on first and third with two outs and Zach Oliver at the plate, but shot themselves in the foot with a baserunning blunder before Oliver had a chance to deliver.

Tomesak had two of Estancia’s four hits batting in the No. 8 slot.

“We just didn’t hit,” Estancia Coach C.K. Green said. “Their pitcher was doing a good job, but he wasn’t great.”

Tomesak was the only Estancia player to reach third base. The Eagles had just one runner advance past first base in the last four innings.

“Kang is very aggressive, he comes right after hitters,” Ocean View Coach Shane Borowski said. “He can get three pitches over for strikes. Anytime someone can do that in high school, they are going to do well.”

Van Geem hurled four solid innings before running into trouble in the fifth. Ocean View clean-up hitter Geoff Klein hit an opposite-field solo home run to lead off the second inning and give the Seahawks a 1-0 lead. In the fourth inning, an infield single, and error and a bloop single led to a run for Ocean View, which led 2-0 after four innings.

“They were right in it for a while,” Borowski said. “Their pitcher threw strikes and fooled our hitters for a while.”

But in the bottom of the fifth inning with one out, after senior Nick Floetker reached on an infield single and stole second, Kang ? not content just to pitch a four-hitter ? slugged a two-run home run to left field to give Ocean View (9-2, 3-0) a 4-0 lead.

The Seahawks welcomed relief pitcher Kane Curran into the game by stringing together three straight singles, good for two more runs and a 6-0 lead after five innings. After the Eagles could only muster an infield single by Ryan Redding, the Seahawks tacked on four more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning off reliever Taylor McClanahan. Kang’s RBI double sparked the rally.

“The big thing on offense was we stuck to the plan,” Borowski said. “We’ve been working on two-strike hitting, and we had four hits with two strikes.”

What Green saw from his team was foreign to him.

“That wasn’t my team,” Green said. “That was a different team than I’m used to seeing. We haven’t had a game like that all season. In the fifth and sixth innings, I don’t know who that was. We just had an off game.”

Green, who made his players run sprints after the game, believes his team will put the game behind them and get back on track. The Eagles play at Westminster on Wednesday.

“This is a good group of kids,” Green said. “They’ll let it go.”