Roller coaster for Burroughs baseball continues with loss to Northview
BURBANK — After ending the Quartz Hill Tournament on Friday following two losses, the Burroughs High baseball team opened the Babe Herman Tournament with wins against Birmingham on Saturday and Carter on Monday.
But Burroughs couldn’t continue its winning ways Tuesday night, suffering a 6-2 loss in the tournament at home against Northview.
“Coach is always telling us that we can’t be on a roller coaster, winning, then losing, then winning,” said Burroughs catcher Matthew Diaz, who was two for three with a double. “We have to try and keep it more steady.
“It’s all a learning experience and you have to be able to learn something from a game like this. If you don’t learn, you’re never going to get any better.”
Although the Indians received solid pitching for the most part, mainly from starter Brandon Ortega, Burroughs (6-6) committed four errors and had other miscues that contributed to the loss against the Vikings (6-3).
“We emphasize in our program to just go out there and play catch, and they just played catch better than we did today,” Burroughs coach Craig Sherwood said. “As much credit as I give [Northview] for playing catch, us not playing catch cost us the game.
“It’s the little things that matter most. It wasn’t one thing or one screw-up that cost us the ball game. It also wasn’t the umpires that cost us the game. We put ourselves in positions that cost us the ball game. This was a program loss today, a team loss today.”
Ortega went four 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on six hits with one strikeout and no walks.
Ortega surrendered a solo home run to left field in the top of the first inning by Connor McKinney that gave Northview a 1-0 lead.
Burroughs tied the score at 1 with a run in the second inning. With one out, Devin Esquivel walked and advanced to second on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Nicco Chuidian and stole third. A single to center field by Diaz put runners at the corners. Diaz then deliberately got caught in a rundown between first and second and by the time he was tagged out Esquivel had already motored home with the run.
The Vikings regained the lead with two runs in the top of the fifth inning.
The Indians made it 3-2 with a run in the fifth. Collin Johnson led off the frame with a double to left-center field and scored on a ground-out by Nathan Palafox (single, walk).
Northview tacked on one run in the sixth and two in the seventh, all aided by Burroughs miscues.
“Our pitchers are busting their butts to throw good pitches and we’re just not getting any defensive help behind them,” Sherwood said. “And that’s very frustrating for our pitchers.
“I told the guys tonight that I want every one of you to go back and replay every moment of the game that you did. Then ask yourself what you could have done better in each situation. If you can say you did everything right, I can live with that, but if you say that you didn’t anticipate this or that or you didn’t make the play here or there, then you have to learn from that.”
The Indians had runners in scoring position in the first, fourth and seventh innings but came up empty each time.
Twitter: @jefftsports
