ORANGE COUNTY PREP BASEBALL : Unfriendly Confines Confound Servite : Ferguson Loses as Sluggers Fall Short on Spacious Lancers’ Field

One long streak came to an end and another remained intact Tuesday for the Servite High School baseball team, but the Friars weren’t happy about either.

Servite pitcher James Ferguson, who hadn’t lost a varsity game since his sophomore season, finally came up a loser as the Friars fell to Bishop Amat, 4-2, in an Angelus League game at La Puente.

Ferguson, a senior right-hander who was 5-0 his junior year and 8-0 entering Tuesday’s game, allowed six hits and four runs in 1 innings before being relieved by Andy Croghan.

The streak that continued was Servite’s losing string on the Lancers’ field. According to Friar Coach Mike McNary, Servite has not won at Bishop Amat since 1982.

“I hate this place,” McNary said after Tuesday’s game.

It’s easy to see why. Bishop Amat’s field bears no resemblance to Servite’s cozy home field, which has a 30-foot-high center-field fence that is only 306 feet from the plate.

The Lancers’ field has a fence, but the closest it comes to the plate is about 420 feet in center field. The left- and right-field fences are at least 550 feet from home, so playing at Bishop Amat is virtually the same as playing with no fence.

And this puts Servite, a power-hitting team, at a disadvantage.

“We hit three balls today that would have easily been out of our park,” McNary said. “We’ve been working on hitting ground balls for the last three days, but it seems like every time we come here, we fail to hit balls on the ground.”

Lancer Coach Glenn Martinez instructed his outfielders to play deep the entire game, and that allowed them to catch Corey Wentz’s long drive to center in the fourth inning and Mike Robertson’s 400-foot shot to center in the seventh.

The Friars hit Lancer left-hander J.R. Phillips hard, but not hard enough to prevent the junior from improving to 9-0. He pitched an eight-hitter to move Bishop Amat (9-2, 15-3), ranked fifth in the Southern Section 4-A division, into a first-place tie with the second-ranked Friars (9-2, 17-4).

McNary tried to make up for the lack of a long-ball threat with aggressive baserunning, but his one gamble backfired in the sixth. Servite had runners on first (Mike Petko) and third (Brian Criss) with none out when McNary called for a hit-and-run.

But Wentz lined a shot right at shortstop Ed Velasquez, who caught the drive and doubled Petko off first. Andy Roschmann then grounded out to end the inning.

Velasquez also made the play of the game in the seventh, diving to his right to stop Tom Szymanski’s one-hop smash and forcing Jim Berry at second. Greg Coleman followed with a single that put runners on first and third, but Robertson flied to deep center for the game’s final out.

Ferguson, suffering from bronchitis and a sinus infection, gave up one run on three hits in the first and three runs on three hits in the second. Croghan shut out the Lancers, allowing only one hit, the rest of the way.

Servite scored twice in the third when Lancer center fielder Pat Rozier lost his footing and fell while trying to field Robertson’s line drive. The ball rolled to the fence, allowing both Coleman, who had walked, and Robertson to score. The play was ruled a home run.