SOUTHERN SECTION 4-A PLAYOFFS : Hart’s Perfect Season Comes to End as Fullerton Pounds Out 12-7 Win

There were shrill sounds all over the Hart High School baseball field Tuesday afternoon.

Most of the ringing noises were the aluminum bats of Fullerton High, sending out 17 stinging hits to all areas of the park.

But the loudest ring of all was a figurative one, as Fullerton played the role of alarm clock in ending Hart’s dream season with a stunning 12-7 upset in a second-round Southern Section 4-A playoff game.

As a result, Hart was treated to the rudest of awakenings, suffering its first loss in 27 games this season.

For Fullerton (20-7), the Freeway League champion, it all still seems a little bit dreamlike.

“You always think you can do it,” said Fullerton’s elated coach, Martin Luczaj, after his team stormed the field in wild celebration. “But there’s always a little doubt in your mind when a team’s 26-0. Our kids just believed they could do it.”

After witnessing a power display from the Fullerton offense so strong it could light a major city, Hart had no choice but to believe it, too.

“Hey, they did a good job,” Hart Coach Bud Murray said quietly. “But our kids did some battling, too.”

To be sure, the game was of unusually high intensity on both sides of the field. Fullerton started ace sophomore Rene Arias, who had pitched a no-hitter only four days earlier in Fullerton’s 1-0 first-round win over Leuzinger.

Hart went with senior right-hander Chris Matkin, who had an 8-0 record coming in, but had never really shown the dominance over hitters needed to subdue a wrecking crew like Fullerton. And Hart’s fears were realized--early.

In the second inning, Matkin surrendered a double and single to the first two batters, prompting Murray to pull him for ace Jason Edwards. Edwards, though, was suffering from a severely sore arm, and the junior allowed four hits to the first five batters he faced.

By the time the Hart defense was finished chasing down balls, Fullerton had scored five runs on six hits in the second alone and effectively numbed a crowd of 600 normally raucous Hart fans.

“We needed some innings out of Matkin and we didn’t get them,” Murray said. “Jason had a real sore elbow so we couldn’t depend on him to save us. That’s the ballgame.”

Meanwhile, Arias (9-1) showed no effects of coming back so soon. In fact, for four innings the right-hander was downright impressive, handcuffing Hart with off-speed pitches and excellent control.

It was in the fifth inning, after Fullerton had scored two more runs on RBI singles from Steve De Phillips (three hits) and Lee Green to extend its lead to 7-1, that Hart finally reached Arias for some run production.

A two-out rally highlighted by a two-run double from Casey Burrill and RBI hits from Darin Tsukashima and Robby Davis ignited the Hart crowd and closed the score to 7-5.

But Fullerton bounced right back with three runs in the top of the sixth, the crusher coming in the form of a two-run double by first baseman Colin Milligan, who finished with three hits. Suddenly, it was 10-5.

Each team added a pair of runs for the final score, and when Hart junior third baseman Dave Toledo popped out to right field to end the game, the celebration was on.

And all Hart could do was watch.

“Our kids wanted to come up here and make things happen,” Luczaj said. “We figured we had nothing to lose.”

Hart, meanwhile, lost sight of the season-long dream.

“They came to play and we didn’t,” Edwards said. “And they’re going on and we aren’t.”