For almost all of the season, the Lakewood Lancers have had the kind of offense that non-purists love—big bats, high scores, and heads-up base-running. But the juggernaut attack (which averaged 8.5 runs per game and scored in the double digits 15 times) came screeching to a halt against Mater Dei, thanks to a 6-inning shutout effort from Monarch sophomore Ty Moore, and the rest of his defense. The Lancers fell 11-2 to end their season, failing to reach second base until the final inning, when Jeff Yamaguchi hit a solo home run in his last at-bat as a Lancer.
Granted, not much of anything went right for the local boys—Yamaguchi started on the mound, and was hit hard, and the Lancers had three base-runners picked off. “We haven’t had a bad game all year,” said Lakewood coach Spud O’Neil. “We finally had one—it just happened to be in the quarterfinals.” Asked where the game ranked in terms of flat performances in his career, he shook his head, and said it was at the top. “The baseball gods just weren’t in our favor.”
They did have their chances—Lakewood got their leadoff hitter on in four of the first five innings, but they failed to reach second on a double play, a failed attempt to steal second, a pickoff at first after a failed bunt attempt, and another double play. In other words, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
The Monarchs offense got rolling in the bottom of the third, when Mater Dei scored two runs on Moore’s double. They got another three in the bottom of the fourth on a double from Austin Monte and Derek Campbell’s triple. All five of those runs came with two outs.
After the double play in the fifth squelched another Lakewood offensive opportunity, the wind seemed to entirely go out of the sails on defense, as the Monarchs scored 6 in the bottom of the inning, including a two-run homer by A.J. Roth. Lakewood got their only offense in the top of the seventh, after Moore had been pulled. Yamaguchi went down swinging—and connecting—with a solo homerun in his last at-bat as a Lancer, then Anthony Razo scored on a wild pitch.
Lakewood graduates a solid group of players—Moore League Player of the Year Yamaguchi, Anthony Razo, Hunter Jones, and Joseph Bernal among others—but also has plenty of talent coming back. It was a wild ride for the Lancers this year, starting off red-hot at 11-0 and grabbing the number one ranking in the nation, before winning a battle against a scrappy pack of contenders for the Moore League crown.
“It was a great season,” O’Neil said. “Except for today.”