Los Alamitos baseball overpowers Marina in Sunset Conference crossover game
Rocco Peppi nearly took his future Long Beach State teammate deep.
The Marina High senior certainly thought he did in the bottom of the first inning of Wednesday’s Sunset Conference crossover game against Los Alamitos. Peppi turned on the first pitch he saw from Griffins senior right-hander Zach Locke, who like him is a Dirtbags commit. He launched it to left field and did a bat flip.
“I made a mistake and I threw it inside instead of outside,” Locke said. “He thought it was going to go out.”
Peppi’s ball was caught just in front of the wall at Marina. Things did not go well the rest of the game for the Vikings, either.
Los Alamitos opened with a nine-run lead and won 9-3.
Locke threw four shutout innings for the Griffins (7-4), allowing three hits. He improved to 5-1 this season.
Marina (5-7) is young this year, with Peppi as the only returning starter. The Vikings have lost three straight games, but Wednesday’s setback was their worst of the season.
The wheels came off in the top of the second inning, after a pair of Marina errors to open up the inning. A well-hit fly ball to right field by Zech Samayoa was dropped, then Zach Peters’ bunt attempt was fielded but fired high to first base, into right field.
One out later, Matt Mingram, Will Reeser, Jared Anderson and Evan Liebl strung together four straight singles for the Griffins, and Johnny Newman followed with a double. Los Alamitos ended up batting around and taking a 6-0 lead.
“We just didn’t execute,” Marina coach Toby Hess said. “Defensively, you open with two two-base errors, and you just put yourself in hot water ... We’re having ups and downs. We’ve had some really good wins. We beat Servite and Dana Hills, and we’ve also had some good losses. We lost to La Mirada 2-1, and that’s a good loss. Then we have a game like today. I think this is the first game that we haven’t been in, so this team hasn’t really been in a laugher like that.
“[Los Alamitos] did everything right today, so give credit where credit is due. I think offensively, defensively and pitching, Los Al just did everything right. We just opened the door too many times, and they took advantage of everything we did wrong, so good for them.”
Marina, down 9-0 after four innings, rallied after Locke came out of the game in the fifth. The Vikings scored twice in the inning, as David Mashburn’s single got past the Los Alamitos right fielder and allowed pinch-hitter D.J. Ariosto to score all the way from first. Mashburn eventually came around to score on Matt Hauver’s two-out single to right.
Caden Aoki, who was a sophomore standout at Edison last year, adds depth at pitcher for the Oilers in 2020. Huntington Beach has won three straight league titles.
Trevor Lanksbury’s double to left in the bottom of the sixth scored Kyle Roeder, but it was too little, too late for the Vikings.
Leibl, bound for Loyola Marymount, was two for three with two RBIs for the winners. Newman, headed to UC Santa Barbara, was two for four with a double.
“I think we do a really good job pitching and playing catch, and that also helps,” Los Alamitos coach Matt Nuez said. “But the big one for us was buying into the consistency of our hitting philosophy, our approach. We’ve been working very diligently on that and the boys did a great job. I’m super-proud of them.”
Hess said that Marina’s home crossover game against Edison scheduled for Friday has been moved up to Thursday at 3:15 p.m., weather permitting. The Vikings, the defending Wave League champions, open league with a home game against Newport Harbor on March 20.
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