Baseball: Lakewood advances to play Valencia in Round 2

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Lakewood ace Matt Johnson pitched sick. ‘He’s real sick,’ said Coach Spud O’Neil. ‘He could have thrown up on the mound.’ Then the coach said, laughing, ‘Hope it wasn’t nerves.’

Nah, it wasn’t nerves at all. Johnson threw too well, giving up two runs over 5 1/3 innings. Derrick Dingeman pitched a scoreless 1 2/3 innings to close out the 10-2 victory over Tustin in a Southern Section-Toyota Division I first-round game tonight at Blair Field in Long Beach.

The Lancers were steady. The Tillers were sloppy, committing four errors.

Lakewood’s Matt Duffy had a bases-clearing double, and Brandon Gillilan, Anthony Razo, David Peters and Jeff Yamaguchi each had RBI singles. Yamaguchi also had a sacrifice fly.

Lakewood (21-11) will play Valencia in the next round on Tuesday.

-- Anthony Stitt