AMERICAN LEGION : Woodland Hills Beats the Clock and Hollywood

After the sixth inning of Thursday’s third game in the American Legion Sixth Area tournament, Woodland Hills stopped playing Hollywood and started playing the clock.

The first six innings of Woodland Hills’ 9-2 rout in the double-elimination tournament at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium took 2 hours, 15 minutes. The last 2 1/2 innings took 30 minutes.

It was no accident. Had the two teams not finished before darkness and fog crept in, they would have resumed play at 9:30 this morning.

“There was no way we wanted to come back,” Woodland Hills Coach Marc Hersh said.

“Even Hollywood didn’t want to come back,” assistant coach Mitch Fair added. “And we would’ve had a hard time between summer school and work.”

Woodland Hills scored seven runs in the third inning to take an 8-0 lead. “After we scored the seven, we were trying to get it over with,” Hersh said.

Winning pitcher Mike Kerber struck out 14, gave up only four hits and two unearned runs. He aided his cause with a two-run home run in the third. Rob Bumgarner added a solo shot in the eighth, after he felt he was mocked by Hollywood pitcher Derrick Douglas.

“The guy started mocking me with a bloop pitch,” Bumgarner said. “I said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to mock me, I’m going to take a good swing.’ ”

In earlier games Thursday, Camarillo defeated Arcadia, 9-8, in 10 innings after blowing an 8-3 lead in the ninth, and Westlake shut out University, 4-0. In today’s games, Arcadia plays University at 9:30 a.m., Westlake plays Hollywood at 1 p.m., and Woodland Hills plays Camarillo at 4:30.

Camarillo’s Ken Sirak walked to lead off the 10th and advanced to third on two consecutive pitches, Mark Juhas’ wild pitch and a passed ball. Sean Luft’s sacrifice fly to center scored Sirak, and pitcher Scott Bush picked up the victory.

Arcadia capped a five-run, ninth-inning rally when Ken Murachanian hit his first home run of the year--and the team’s first outside-the-park home run of the year. The team played its games in parks with no fences.

In the opening game, Marty Williams’ triple and Ed Campaniello’s ground out in the third inning was all the support Westlake’s winning pitcher Jon DeGennaro and reliever Greg Struhl needed.

Westlake played the game without Ed Hall and Doug Rich, who on Monday were ruled ineligible for postseason play.