If you score a run in every inning, or if your pitcher throws a one-hitter through six innings, you can usually be pretty sure you’re going to win the baseball games—the Edison Chargers did both of those things against Lakewood Friday in the first round of the CIF playoffs, and the outcome was exactly what you’d think, with an 11-1 Lakewood loss. The hit-happy Chargers smacked two home runs, and scored 11 runs off of 11 hits. Defensively, the Chargers’ Kurt Heyer threw a complete-game two-hitter, striking out seven.
“They outdid us in every category,” said Lakewood coach Spud O’Neill. “They’re true champions.”
The offensive alarm bells went off early, as Heyer started the game by striking out the Lakewood side—he caught leadoff man Alex Padilla looking before getting Anthony Razo and Jeff Yamaguchi to swing hard on 2-2 cheese. Knowing they needed a confidence boost of their own, the Lancers got just the opposite in the bottom of the inning, as the usually in-control Jonathan Worrell was just a little too high. The Chargers dinged him for four hits and four runs in the first frame, including a two-run homer by Ryan Little over the left field fence.
Edison didn’t rip Worrell open again while he was in (through the first two outs of the fifth), but they did tack on one run in each inning he faced them; Cole Phillips came in for Worrell, and was relieved by Josh Schoenberger in the bottom of the sixth, after a wild Phillips pitch scored the Chargers’ ninth run. Schoenberger’s second pitch to Tanner Phillips scored two runs. Yeah, it was that kind of day.
O’Neill gave credit to the Charger hitters: “They hit some balls that were really good pitches [including the second homer, which was nearly in the dirt]. The aluminum bats came through—there’s just no way we’re going to win giving up 11 runs.”
Offensively the story wasn’t much better, as Lakewood didn’t get more than four batters to the plate in any inning save the fourth, the only inning Heyer gave them a real opening. But even the run couldn’t get the Lancers going—Razo reached first when Heyer tagged him on the shoulder, and then moved to second on a passed ball. Yamaguchi hit a short single for the Lancers’ only hit until the seventh, putting Razo on third; he scored on Matt Duffy’s right field sac fly, but with Edison already up 6, there was little celebrating.
“We did everything we thought we could to get prepared for these guys,” said O’Neill. “We had our best week of practice—we were just off.”
With the book newly closed on the end of a disappointing 2009 campaign—the Lancers were widely predicted to win the league title, and instead came in third—O’Neill was already looking ahead, with the foresight of a coach who’s been around for two-plus decades. “Our freshman won their league, and we’ll have some of them moved up next year, and we have some really terrific JV players,” he said. “So don’t cry for Lakewood.”