Dodgers Go Home for Holiday, 3-1 : Valley Team Falls Out of Tournament

The Valley Dodgers planned to spend their entire holiday weekend playing in the National Baseball Congress state tournament.

Instead they’ll be sitting home watching the NBC Game of the Week.

Willie Blas outdueled Fred Riscen as the San Diego Stars bumped the Dodgers from the double-elimination tournament Friday with a 3-1 victory at Fiscalini Stadium.

Blas (2-0), a 23-year-old right-hander, allowed four hits--one a home run by Lorenzo Lesky--and faced the minimum number of batters over the final 4 innings.

Each team holds considerable respect for the other and little for Don DiCarlo, the tournament director and general manager of the San Bernardino Indians.

The Dodgers, ranked seventh in the nation, and the Stars, ranked 11th, are the only ranked teams in the tournament. Rankings are based upon last season’s results, but both teams are strong again this year, occupying the top two spots in the Golden State League.

Both teams were placed in the same bracket, forcing the second-round matchup. The other bracket included the Golden State League’s third- through sixth-place teams.

DiCarlo said he made the brackets to accommodate teams with time conflicts, but Stars Manager Marty Nellis and Dodger Manager Sean Toerner think he was attempting to give his team more than the standard home-field advantage.

To them, DiCarlo’s actions are comparable to holding a basketball tournament and putting Indiana, North Carolina, Nevada Las Vegas and Georgetown in one bracket and your own team, Furman, Eastern Illinois and Youngstown State in the other.

“This tournament has no seedings, which I’ve never heard of,” Toerner said.

Said Nellis: “It was (bleep). You’ve got to split the good teams up.”

But the Dodgers (15-5), who have a .362 team batting average, were not very good in the tournament, scoring only four runs and batting .186 in their two losses.

San Diego (15-5) also lost its first-round game, so it may not be the tournament’s best, either.

During the first few innings Friday, it looked like one run might be enough to win. The Stars loaded the bases in the second, but Riscen (3-1), who pitched last season at College of the Canyons, stifled the threat.

Lesky hit his first home run of the season in the top of the fifth to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead, but the Stars erased that with solo home runs by Eric Bennett in the sixth and Jimmy Nellis in the seventh.

The Stars added another run in the eighth, but Blas didn’t need it, retiring 13 of 14 after Lesky’s home run.

The Dodgers hit several balls sharply during the first few innings, but Blas was backed by a solid defense and seemed to get stronger as the game progressed.

“Hitting the ball hard and still making an out makes hitters do things they shouldn’t,” Toerner said. “After a couple of at-bats you start to adjust when you really don’t have to.”

Said Lesky: “We’re not swinging real well at this point, but I can’t see this team staying in a slump.”

If nothing else, the Dodgers have the weekend to work their way out.

The Dodgers still can qualify for the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kan., later this month if they can win their league. The team resumes its schedule Thursday against the Ventura County Royals at Camino Real Park in Ventura.