High School Baseball : Knockout Isn’t There, but Mission Bay Wins

The look of a loss was in the Mission Bay High School baseball team’s dugout.

On one side, Coach Dennis Pugh put an arm around pitching ace Sean Rees and tried to lift his spirits. Other players hung their heads and moped.

After speaking with Rees, Pugh surveyed the scene, shook his head and yelled, “C’mon, you guys, this was a big win for us!”

Win?

Yes indeed, Mission Bay had won, though it was hard to tell.

The third-ranked Buccaneers edged University of San Diego High School, 8-7, Thursday in an important City Western League game at Cunningham Stadium.

With the victory, Mission Bay (19-2-1, 9-2) remained in a tie for first with La Jolla and shoved third-place USDHS (11-9, 6-4) closer to elimination.

“This was a big game today,” Pugh said. “La Jolla and University still have to play each other twice.”

Mission Bay has completed its league schedule against USDHS and has just one game remaining with La Jolla.

Now if Pugh can only get his team to hold on to big leads. The inability to do so almost cost Mission Bay the game and led to the glum looks afterward.

“I think they’re at a point now where it’s frustrating because they aren’t putting teams away,” Pugh said. “We had the two 10-inning losses (in the past two weeks), and teams are coming back on us. They want to beat up on some people. I think maybe we’re trying to be too perfect.”

Back-to-back doubles by second baseman Tony Enomoto and Rees helped Mission Bay score three runs in the third inning.

USDHS retaliated with three of its own in the bottom of the inning. Right fielder Tony Moeder drove in one run with a double, and pitcher Duke Gonzalez knocked in two more with a sharp single.

Mission Bay then pulled away with a five-run fifth. A double by Pat Betancourt brought two runs home, and three errors by USDHS kept the rally going.

With hard-throwing Rees looking sharp--”That was the best I’ve thrown in three weeks,” he said--Mission Bay appeared to have the game in hand.

But, much as it did two weeks ago in a 10-inning comeback win over Mission Bay, USDHS refused to lie down.

In the sixth, singles by Steve Walker, Gavin Millay, Brian Boyd and Jeff Desjardins brought in four runs to make it 8-7. But with the tying run at first, Rees halted the rally by striking out Moeder, at .446 the Dons’ leading hitter.

Rees (8-1) struck out seven. He also was 2 for 3 with a run batted in. Enomoto improved his average to .460 by going 2 for 2 with two runs scored and an RBI.

USDHS’ Boyd, the ninth hitter, went 3 for 3 with two runs scored and an RBI.