Canyons Falls to Own Errors in 10-7 Loss to Cerritos

For only the second time since 1980, College of the Canyons will not play in the title game of the state community college baseball championship.

Cerritos College (43-5), behind eight strong innings of pitching by right-hander Jay Makemson, dropped the Cougars out of the double-elimination tournament Sunday afternoon at San Jose City College.

The final score was 10-7, but all of Canyons’ runs came in the last three innings after Cerritos had taken a 9-0 lead.

Makemson (8-0) had allowed only three hits through six innings before Canyons scored twice in the seventh on three singles and two walks. He gave up another run in the eighth on a walk and two singles before leaving the game in the ninth.

A long double by Canyons’ Andy Cutchall leading off the inning finally chased the 6-3, 210 sophomore after he had thrown 183 pitches, struck out 12 and walked 8.

“I was getting a little tired,” said Makemson, from Long Beach Jordan High. “I was getting the ball up a little, which makes things hard with a low-ball umpire.”

He was replaced by Gabriel Carmona who, in just nine pitches, managed to let Canyons back in the game.

Mike Bible, who had been pitched around all day, tagged Carmona’s second pitch for a long, two-run homer to left-center field. Carmona then hit Gary Ray with a pitch, setting up another two-run homer, this one hit to right field by Alex Vasquez.

Pat Sweet, one of the top pitchers on the Cerritos staff, came in to get the last three outs.

The comeback helped the defending state champions save a little face. “At least we made it close,” Bible said.

Canyons (34-10-1) had made it to the championship game five of the last six years. This time their traditionally strong hitting and solid pitching couldn’t overcome some pitiful defense.

The Cougars committed five errors against Cerritos and 16 in four tournament games. “You cannot play that kind of defense,” said Canyons Coach Len Mohney.

Four of Canyons’ errors came in the first six innings and led to five unearned runs.

Chris Zavatsky, Canyons’ top relief pitcher, took the loss after making a rare start.

He gave up 4 earned runs and 8 hits in a little over 5 innings. “He had good stuff,” said catcher Bible. “We just didn’t make the plays for him.”

Cerritos, which has the distinction of being the last school to win back-to-back state baseball titles (three in a row from 1973 through 1975), got 10 hits and took advantage of 12 walks--8 by Zavatsky, 2 by Jordan Cook and 2 by John Schmidt--all of which might have been survivable, Mohney said, if not for the errors.

“Our offense didn’t go sour,” Mohney said, “and the pitching was OK. I think our pitching might have been better than OK if we had played a little catch. I think that was the big difference in the whole series. We did not play good defense.”