La Crescenta Babe Ruth baseball team’s championship route hits detour

One game shy of playing for a championship, the La Crescenta 14-year-old Babe Ruth Team is now one loss short of elimination.

That’s because a La Crescenta team that opened the Southern California State Championships with momentum took a detour via a 12-2 defeat in five innings to Torrance at El Segundo High’s Stevenson Field on Wednesday afternoon.

The setback thrusts La Crescenta into an elimination contest Friday back at El Segundo at 4:30 p.m. versus either El Segundo or Westchester. A win Friday would vault La Crescenta into Saturday’s championship game at noon, where Torrance will be waiting.

“It’s not the game that we expected to have,” La Crescenta Coach Juan Pablo Valdez said. “We played a good team, well-coached. They got people on base and moved them over and made it hard for us.”

Torrance scored a run in the first inning and bolted to a 5-0 advantage after two innings.

The visitors eventually scored the first nine runs before La Crescenta responded with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth thanks to a double from Charlie Rocca.

La Crescenta’s Matt Odom may have turned in his team’s best overall effort as he singled and walked and tossed two innings of relief.

The loss was the first this tournament for La Crescenta, which began Saturday with a 9-0 victory over Simi Valley.

La Crescenta followed that victory with a 10-6 win over Long Beach Heartwell. Both Heartwell and Simi Valley have since been eliminated from the tournament.

“We have our work cut out for us,” Valdez said. “We’re going to have to play better if we want to win.”