SOUTHERN SECTION 4-A PLAYOFFS : Rodwick Has a Hand in Canyon’s 2-1 Victory Over Upland in Playoffs

Chris Rodwick had two of Canyon High School’s three hits Tuesday to lead the Comanches to a 2-1 victory over Upland in the second round of the Southern Section 4-A baseball playoffs at Canyon.

Canyon (19-8) will play Ventura Friday in the quarterfinals. Ventura defeated Gahr, 5-0, Tuesday.

Rodwick was involved in both of Canyon’s runs with an RBI and a run scored.

“When it counted, we came through,” Rodwick said.

Rodwick’s single in the second inning gave Canyon a 1-0 lead. John Cummings opened the inning by reaching first on an error by shortstop Buddy McCown.

McCown’s throw after fielding Cummings’ grounder was wide and Cummings advanced to second base. Rodwick then lined a single to left to score Cummings.

Cummings (9-3), a senior who will attend USC next fall, was the winning pitcher. His four strikeouts upped his season total to 115.

Upland, which finished 21-7, tied the score in the fourth but might have scored again had Jason Fagundes not been thrown out earlier in the inning.

Fagundes, who had singled, was out trying to advance to third on Jerry Crump’s single.

Crump’s single was hit hard to shallow right, where Canyon’s John Thibert fielded the ball cleanly and threw to shortstop Joe Furukawa, who relayed to his brother, Tommy, for the tag at third.

Crump remained at first and scored on the next play when Thibert misjudged Steve Fiorindo’s fly ball in the sun.

The error put Fiorindo on third with two outs, but Cummings struck out Nate Wrobel to end the inning.

With two outs in the fourth, Canyon rallied when Rodwick hit a double to deep center field.

Scott Myers then hit a sharp single to left to score Rodwick with the game-winning RBI.

Upland threatened when it put two runners on with no outs in the seventh.

“I wasn’t sure we were going to make it through (the seventh),” Cummings said.

But Cummings settled down and retired the next three batters on a pop-up, ground out and a strikeout.

Upland Coach Mike Alonso said: “We had our chances, we just didn’t get the key hits at the right time.”