Well…our preview isn’t coming out for a little over a week, but it looks like it’s safe to say who the prohibitive favorites are.  The Lakewood Lancers demolished national power El Toro on Friday in the Loara Tournament Championship, 10-1, to improve their record to 5-0 (by a combined 39-7).  The win has catapulted them to the top of Maxpreps’ Freeman Rankings, where they currently sit as the number one team in America.

Nobody could have expected the game against the Chargers would have been so lopsided.  It started in the first inning when J.P. Crawford (2-4 2R, SB) singled.  After a walk, Jeff Yamaguchi hit a homerun to give Lakewood a 3-0 lead.  Yamaguchi had a monster game, going 4-4 with two doubles, a triple, a homerun, and scoring 4 runs with 4 RBI.

The Lancers added two more runs in the third and one more in the fifth. With the score 6-1 in the 6th, the Lancers broke the game open.

The inning started with two singles, from Joseph Bernal and Crawford. After a Tyler Schultz sac bunt to advance the runners, Hunter Jones drove them with a hit to right field. Yamaguchi would triple to hit in Jones and Anthony Razo would hit a sac fly to score Yamaguchi. Ten runs was more than enough for Shane Watson who pitched 6 strong innings.

The Chargers had averaged over 7 runs per game in this tournament, but Watson kept them to 1 run on 5 hits, while striking out 2. Padilla pitched a scoreless 7th to close out the game. The Lancers also stopped the hard-hitting Chargers with defensive plays by Jones, Tyler Leidholt, Yamaguchi and James Gosano. Yamaguchi was selected the game and tournament’s MVP after the game, but it’s obvious from the way this team has played through their first five games—they’re a complete team, and a formidable one.

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