City 4-A Final : Kennedy Wins on Farlow’s Homer

Sophomore third baseman Kevin Farlow put a solid ending to an otherwise sloppy game as he hit a solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Kennedy High School of Granada Hills a 10-9 victory over Banning and the City 4-A baseball championship Thursday night before a crowd of 4,263 at Dodger Stadium.

It was the second title in five years for Kennedy (18-5) and the 13th straight championship for Valley teams in the City’s top division.

Banning, which came back from a third-place finish in the Marine League, finished 16-10.

“I was beginning to think it would never end,” Kennedy Coach Dick Whitney said. “I was just telling them, ‘Will somebody please hit it over the fence to get it over with?’ ”

Whitney probably wasn’t the only one who thought that the game, marked by walks and sloppy play, would never end.

Kennedy had taken advantage of five walks from two Banning pitchers in the bottom of the second, when it sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs to move ahead by five. George Gonzalez, Carey Holst and Farlow each had two RBIs in the rally, Farlow’s coming on a two-out double to left.

Then, after Banning went ahead, 8-6, in the fourth, Kennedy was given back the lead in the bottom of the fifth--90 feet at a time. That is, two more Banning pitchers issued five more walks, which Kennedy turned into three runs and a 9-8 margin.

And the players on the field were often as wild as the pitchers. Banning had two errors to go with the seven walks its pitchers had given up through the first three innings. Kennedy had three errors in the same span and five through four innings.

In the end, at 11:13 p.m., 3 hours 16 minutes after the game started, the linescore was not a pretty one for purists. Banning had 9 runs on 7 hits with 3 errors, while Kennedy went 10, 6 and 5. There were 14 walks by Banning pitchers and 7 by Kennedy pitchers, and there were also the following:

--Kennedy starter Eric Evans left the game in the fourth inning after giving up eight runs, all of which were unearned.

--Banning batted around and scored five runs in the fourth inning, with one hit to show for it.

--Kennedy’s Greg Synnott walked twice in the second inning, and John Smith made two of Banning’s outs in the fourth.

--Banning pitcher/right fielder/first baseman/pitcher (again) Joe Pardo tied the game at 9-9 in the sixth after scoring from third on an infield single by designated hitter/pitcher/second baseman/right fielder Mike Ortiz, which was the Pilots’ first earned run of the game.

But Farlow was able to right all the wrongs with one swing.