Baseball: Opening weekend produces surprises

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So much for the experts knowing the top teams in high school baseball. Among the ranked teams going down to defeat in the opening weekend were No. 1 Crespi, No. 3 Mater Dei, No. 7 Orange Lutheran, No. 11 Westlake, No. 15 Capistrano Valley, No. 16 Esperanza and No. 24 El Dorado.

Esperanza, however, came back to knock off Orange Lutheran and ace pitcher Gerrit Cole, 5-4, and over the weekend the Aztecs didn’t use USC-bound pitcher Jonathan Pettibone, who has been nursing a sore back.

‘That kid throws hard,’ Esperanza Coach Mike Curran said of Cole, pictured. ‘You walk back into the dugout and share high fives when you don’t strike out.’

There’s an excellent game set for Tuesday in the Moorpark tournament matching Chatsworth (2-0) against Hart (2-0) at Chatsworth.

-- Eric Sondheimer