City Baseball Championships : Long Wait Is Over for Canoga Park

In nearly four decades, Canoga Park High School baseball coach Doug MacKenzie has seen almost everything baseball has to offer, except a championship. After seven innings Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, MacKenzie had seen it all.

Canoga Park won the City 4-A baseball title with a 5-4 win over Poly, a landmark victory for MacKenzie, to say the least. It marked the 300th win in a 37-year career, and gave MacKenzie a City baseball title in the Hunters’ first-ever trip to the final.

“We played a near-perfect game,” MacKenzie said. “Our defense was terrific, our hitting was good and our pitching was good enough. . . .

“It was worth the wait, but I hope my next title will be sooner.”

Canoga Park played six errorless innings, collecting five extra-base hits to lead, 5-1, going into the seventh. But winning pitcher Adam Schulhofer (9-2), who had allowed Poly only four hits through six innings, hit the first batter he faced in the seventh and walked the second, setting things up for Poly shortstop Danny Gil.

Gil, who drove in five runs in Poly’s 6-4 win over Chatsworth in the semifinals, crushed a 1-2 pitch into the left-field bullpen to narrow the lead to 5-4. Reliever Mike Roberts then gave up two singles before striking out Ali Aguilar to end the game.

Canoga Park opened it up in the fourth inning as Mike Kerber, a 6-3 junior, hit starter Nick Lymberopolous’ third pitch over the fence, to the left of the 385-foot sign in center field, giving the Hunters a 2-1 lead.

Catcher Mike Urman then tripled to right-center, his long line drive falling just under the glove of Luis Porres. Kasey Fink followed with another triple, a high fly ball along the right-field line that fell just beyond Porres. Urman scored, and it was 3-1.

Poly Coach Jerry Cord then brought in Greg Nealon, who struck out two to retire the side Canoga Park scored again in the fifth and sixth innings.

After Aaron Marks reached base on third baseman Aguilar’s fielding error, Schulhofer doubled down the left-field line, sending Marks to third, and Mickey Snook then hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Marks. In the sixth, Scott Strickland singled to left, stole second base and was driven home by Mark’s single to left.

Canoga Park, which finished tied for the West Valley League title with Chatsworth, wound up 19-4. Poly, which won its first 12 games and spent much of the year at the top of the Times’ City poll, finished at 21-5.

In the City 3-A championship game:

Bell 7, Venice 5--The Eagles won their first baseball title in the 62-year history of the school as Venice’s three-year reign as section champion came to an end at Dodger Stadium.

Venice committed five errors, including two in the first that helped the Eagles to a 2-0 lead.

Bell (25-4), co-champion of the Eastern League, scored two unearned runs with the help of two Venice errors in the top of the seventh inning to increase its lead to 7-4.

Venice (22-8), champion of the Western League, scored one run in the bottom of the inning and had the bases loaded with two out. But reliever Jesse Aldana got Chico Garcia to bounce into a forceout to end the game.

Bell Coach Robert Moroney thought that Venice’s experience in championship games would be to the Gondoliers’ advantage, but he was wrong.

“It may have worked against them,” he said. “They seemed a little overconfident today.”

Gil McDonough and Javier Rivera each had two hits to lead Bell.

Luis Carrillo (9-2) pitched 6 innings to get the victory.