Huntington Beach slugs its way to Sunset League baseball title
The only question was whether Nick Lopez’s home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning was fair or not. The home plate umpire ruled the towering shot over the left-field pole fair.
Other than that, no one can question who has the best baseball team in the Sunset League.
Huntington Beach High showed it at home Wednesday by hitting four home runs during a seven-run fourth inning. Lopez and Justin Brodt hit back-to-back solo shots, Brodt to right field. Then Ken Takada hammered a three-run shot to left field and Jag Burden lined a two-run shot over the right-field fence.
The onslaught broke the game open and it led to the Oilers clinching at least a share of the league title for the fourth time in five years with a 9-3 win over Los Alamitos.
The Oilers improved to 11-1 in the league, giving them a three-game lead over the second-place Griffins with three to go. One more win and Huntington Beach will be the outright league champion for the second straight year.
A week after the Oilers suffered their first league setback, a 20-4 loss to Fountain Valley, they bounced back in their next two games. Quality starts and the long ball is how Huntington Beach beat the Barons 6-2 last Friday and the Griffins five days later.
“It was better than the last fourth inning that we had here [at home], because the last fourth inning we had 10 runs put up on us by Fountain Valley,” said Huntington Beach coach Benji Medure, who saw the left-handed hitting Brodt homer for the third time in two games. “It was nice to see [runs] on the bottom half of that scoreboard and not the top.”
In some ways, Medure said the blowout loss turned out to be “a good rest button” for Huntington Beach, which is 23-4 overall and ranked No. 3 in the state by CalHiSports.com. Seeing his team respond was important before the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs start in two weeks.
Medure said he does not plan to rest his starters at Los Alamitos on Friday, or in the final two league games with Edison next week. With a strong finish to the regular season, the Oilers might be able to leapfrog the top two teams in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 poll, No. 1 Studio City Harvard-Westlake and No. 2 Orange Lutheran. Huntington Beach defeated the Lancers 1-0 on Feb. 28.
The question is who will start on the mound for the Oilers during the playoffs. They have four left-handed starters, Josh Hahn, Nate Madole, Edward Pelc and Dylan Ramirez.
Pelc has thrown himself into the conversation as the possible No. 2 starter, behind Hahn, a junior committed to UCLA. Pelc, a University of San Diego commit, threw five shutout innings against Los Alamitos (16-9, 8-4 in league), allowing two hits while striking out two and walking one.
One run is all Pelc (3-0) has given up during his 22 innings this season. The junior has thrown 14 straight scoreless innings.
“We knew we had a good one when he transferred over [from Sage Hill],” Medure said of Pelc, who also went two for three on Wednesday. “We just didn’t know how good of a pitcher he was going to be. We knew we were going to get offense out of him and speed, but for him to be pitching the way he is, it’s just a huge bonus.
“We’ll see how [Pelc] throws next week, but [we] kind of have a four-headed monster. We may be able to use all four [pitchers] in a game every single time throughout the playoffs. We’ve never done that before, but it’s something that we might be able to do. Whoever we have go out there [on the mound], it’s going to be pretty tough to hit against.”
Get more of David Carrillo Peñaloza’s work and follow him on Twitter @ByDCP
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