Thousand Oaks Baseball Tournament : Believe-It-or-Not Shot Blows Westlake Away

As they watched the high, arcing flight of the fly ball, El Camino Real baseball players and coaches kept telling themselves, “We believe, we believe.”

After the ball landed just beyond the left-field fence, a happy group of El Camino Real fans kept yelling, “That was unbelievable, unbelievable.”

And Westlake High Coach Dennis Judd, who didn’t want to believe it, just shook his head and muttered, “A simple, lazy fly ball . . .”

The hit in question was Denny Vigo’s solo home run in the top of the ninth inning that gave El Camino Real a 6-5 victory Wednesday in the consolation championship game of the Thousand Oaks tournament.

“I wasn’t really trying for a home run,” said Vigo, who also had a double, two singles and two runs batted in. “I was just trying to put the ball in play and let somebody else drive me in. But I got it up there and it just caught the wind.”

The Conquistadores (4-3) took an early 2-0 lead but had to rally from a 4-2 deficit in the fifth inning, then break a tie in the ninth.

“We stayed in there and kept on thinking we were going to win it,” El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio said. “We never thought it was over.”

The game looked like it was over in the bottom of the eighth inning when Westlake’s Mike Lieberthal walked, Mike Saurez got an infield hit and Craig Cooper singled to right to load the bases with one out and the score tied, 5-5.

But the Warriors (7-7) let winning pitcher Patrick Treend (2-0) get out of the inning. Carlton Lance hit a bouncer back to Treend, who flipped the ball to Conquistadore catcher Mike Stephenson for the force. Treend struck out Derek Tamburro to end the threat.

That set the stage for Vigo’s team-leading fourth home run, which gave El Camino Real a lead that, once again, appeared to be in jeopardy.

Westlake’s Chuck Foster opened the bottom of the ninth with a single down the left-field line and moved to second on an error. Mike Eby reached on a fielder’s choice, but Mike Campbell popped up to the catcher and John Stephens hit into a double play to end the game.

“It was a great game for us,” Vigo said. “We stuck in there and kept coming back. We just kept believing in ourselves, believing we could come back.”

Reseda 7, Thousand Oaks 2--Doug Ades threw 3 innings of no-hit ball to lead Reseda to fifth place. Thousand Oaks’ Tom Brozowski doubled with two outs in the fourth to break up Ades’ no-hit bid.

Ades allowed two hits and one run in 5 innings, striking out four and walking three. Steve Brody pitched the final 1 innings, allowing one hit while striking out three.

Reseda rallied for five runs in the bottom of the sixth to break the game open. The big blow was Kevin Ogle’s two-run double.

Scott Barkman (0-1) took the loss, allowing two hits and two earned runs in four-plus innings. Barkman walked the leadoff batter in each of the first five innings.

In other games, Ventura rallied for five runs in the seventh to win the tournament championship with a 7-4 victory over Channel Islands. San Marcos took third place with a 14-7 win over Lompoc.