PREP BASEBALL : Century League : Canyon Smashes Santa Ana : Comanches Jump Start Offense, Continue Barrage for 16-0 Win

Canyon High School scored 10 runs in the first three innings Friday as the Comanches rolled to a 16-0 Century League baseball victory over Santa Ana Friday at Canyon.

The Comanches (6-3, 2-1), who took a 5-0 lead after two innings, scored five more runs in the third to put the game out of reach.

Mike Cifranic drove home four runs with a double, sacrifice fly and run-scoring force play. Three other Canyon players--Dan Puskas, Joe Furukawa and Chris Rodwick--each had two hits and a run batted in.

John Cummings (3-1), who pitched the first five innings, allowed just one hit and struck out seven to record the victory. Doug Allen, who pitched the last two innings for Canyon, also yielded one hit.

Bobby Reimers (3-1), who faced four batters in the third without getting an out, was the loser for Santa Ana (6-3, 2-1).

Reimers allowed nine runs on nine hits before Santa Ana Coach Bill Ross replaced him in the third with George Carachure.

“I don’t think Cummings had a strong performance at all,” Canyon Coach Hi Lavalle said. “He was off his rhythm, and he didn’t look good out there.”

But the same couldn’t be said of the Canyon hitters. The Comanches scored three runs in the first inning. After Ralph Pacheco led off the inning with an infield out, Dan Puskas popped a shallow single to center that fell between three Saint defenders.

Furukawa followed Puskas by grounding a single to right to advance Puskas to third. Then, after Reimers walked Cummings intentionally to load the bases, Rodwick walked to force home the Comanches’ first run.

Canyon made it 2-0 when John Thibert’s fly to right was dropped. Cummings, who advanced to second on Rodwick’s walk and to third on Franco’s error, then scored when Cifranic hit into a force play.

Cummings, who struck out three straight batters in the first after allowing a walk and committing an error against the first two hitters, struck out the side in the second. Then Canyon scored twice on Puskas’ run-scoring triple and Furukawa’s infield out to score Puskas to make it 5-0.

After Rodwick and Thibert led off the Canyon third with singles, Cifranic doubled them home. Tom Merchant then scored Cifranic with a triple for an 8-0 lead to knock Reimers out.

After Phillip Gasca’s infield out against Carachure, which scored Merchant, Pacheco tripled to right. Pacheco then scored the Comanches’ fifth run of the inning on Carachure’s wild pitch.

“Hitting hasn’t been one of our strengths during the season, and I wished it would be,” Lavalle said. “Today, we got a lot of breaks and we had a lot of hitting, perhaps because we made a lot of adjustments during the week.”

Villa Park 10, El Modena 2--Tom Roth and John Genova each had three hits to lead host Villa Park (5-5, 1-2). Genova also drove in two runs. Senior right-hander Jerry Aschoff (1-0) went six innings, striking out six, for the victory. It was Aschoff’s first start since he returned from a back injury that was causing numbness in his left arm.

Foothill 6, Santa Valley 0--Adam Chambers hit a two-run homer and Tommy Hawkins drove in two runs with a single to lead host Foothill (6-3, 2-1). Tommy Adams (2-2) pitched five innings for the victory.