Allen’s HR Brings Back Granada, 9-6

Granada Hills High may not play the prettiest baseball in the City Section, but the Highlanders proved once again Tuesday that you can’t judge a team by its looks.

Granada Hills defeated Canoga Park, 9-6, in a 4-A quarterfinal game at Granada Hills, coming back from a three-run deficit in typical Highlander fashion: by playing a little bash ball at bat.

Bob Allen, a linebacker turned right fielder, provided the biggest bash in the bottom of the fifth inning, hitting a 3-and-1 pitch from Canoga Park’s Adam Schulhofer over the left-field fence and on to Hiawatha Street.

“I’m not sure whether it was a fastball or a slider that didn’t break,” Allen said later. Whatever, Allen straightened it out right over the 320-sign in left to bring Granada Hills back from a 6-3 deficit.

“I haven’t seen one hit that hard here in a long time,” Granada Hills Coach Darryl Stroh said.

Actually, that might be a bit of an understatement. Hitting has been a Highlander trademark this year, as their 25 runs in two playoff games would attest. But so has questionable pitching. And that too followed form against Canoga Park.

Pitcher Mark Kessler started for Granada Hills but lasted only three innings and left trailing, 6-3. He had a 3-1 lead after three innings, but the first five Hunter batters to come to the plate reached base in the fourth. By the time Sean Casey relieved, four runs had scored and Bryan Littlefield was standing at third after his three-run double to right had cleared the bases.

Casey got out of the inning cheaply enough, allowing only a run-scoring single by Aaron Marks to run Canoga’s lead to 6-3.

Granada Hills came back with five runs an inning later. Greg Fowble and Dean Yoshitani led off with walks and scored on Allen’s third homer of the season. One out later, Sean Brown tripled. After Dan Takahashi grounded out, Kessler walked.

Brown then scored after Kessler was caught off first and got in a run-down play. Kessler took second on the play and later scored on a single to center by Ken Lowry to make it 8-6 Granada Hills.

Casey allowed four hits--two of them bunt singles--in the last four innings to improve his record to 9-4.

He will probably be the starting pitcher Friday against Polytechnic, which was a 3-1 winner over Banning on Tuesday. Granada Hills (17-5) plays Poly at 3 p.m. Friday at a neutral site.

Granada Hills played without third baseman Scott Tosti, who was suspended from school last week for his role in an on-campus fight. Stroh said Tosti’s suspension ended at 3 p.m. Tuesday--the time of the game--but he couldn’t play because he had not attended school because of the suspension. Fowble and Kevin Hopper missed last Friday’s game against San Pedro for their role in the fight but were reinstated for Tuesday’s game.

The defeat ends the season for Canoga Park (12-8).

Catcher Mike Urman hit a solo home run, his fifth of the season, in the second inning. As a junior, he was the most valuable player in the West Valley League.