Century League Baseball : Cummings Lifts Canyon to Win, Share of First

Canyon High School rallied for four runs in the fifth inning to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 Century League baseball victory Tuesday at Foothill.

The win lifted Canyon (13-5, 6-2) into a first-place tie with Foothill (11-7, 6-2) with seven games to play. Canyon and Foothill will play again Friday.

Canyon, which was limited to three hits by Foothill’s Kent Donnelly (2-2) before the fifth, had five hits in that inning. The first hit was delivered by leadoff batter Scott Myers, who singled and was replaced by pinch-runner Tom Furukawa.

After Tom Merchant struck out and Furukawa stole second, Ralph Pacheco singled to right to advance Furukawa to third. Dan Puskas then stroked a hit-and-run single to left to score Furukawa. Puskas and Pacheco moved to second and third, respectively, when Foothill left fielder Tom Hawkins committed an error.

Tom Furukawa’s brother, Joe, then singled home Puskas and Pacheco and took second base on the late throw to the plate. Canyon pitcher John Cummings (5-2) then singled home Joe Furukawa.

“I told the team before the start of the fifth that they were taking a lot of good pitches for strikes and they had to be more aggressive at the plate,” Hi Lavalle, Canyon coach, said. “They responded by just trying to make contact against their pitcher instead of overswinging at his pitches, and it worked.”

Foothill Coach Gerry Sedoo said: “Those hits they delivered in the fifth had eyes on them. They just eluded our fielders’ gloves by inches.”

Cummings, who went the distance, struck out 12 and gave up 4 hits, three of them in the first inning, when the Knights scored their two runs.

After Cummings struck out Adam Chambers to start the first inning, Ashby Jones reached first when Canyon shortstop Joe Furukawa threw low to first for an error. Singles by Paul Thornton and Eric Garcia loaded the bases before Scott Barton drove in two runs with a single.

The only other hit Cummings allowed was Donnelly’s leadoff double in the fourth. He finished the game by retiring nine batters in a row, five of them through strikeouts.

Donnelly finished the game allowing seven hits and striking out seven.

Santa Ana 4, Villa Park 3--Santa Ana (10-8, 5-3) scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning. With the bases loaded in the seventh and one out, Santa Ana tried a squeeze play, but Bob Reimers missed the ball and the runner from third was out. But then Reimers lined a 1-2 pitch into right-center field for the game-winning hit. George Carachure (3-1) pitched seven innings to get the victory.

El Modena 12, Santa Ana Valley 2--Marcus Esposito (5-2) had 13 strikeouts and allowed 8 hits in 6 innings to get the victory. He also had two hits. Dave Johnson hit a two-run home run in the fifth inning, and Dan Aguirre and Joe Santos also hit two-run home runs in the seventh inning for El Modena (6-9, 4-4), which had 13 hits.