Esperanza Drives Sharts Simi Valley Out of Playoffs

Now you Simi, now you don’t.

The timely hitting and overpowering pitching that had carried Simi Valley High to 23 wins, its third consecutive Marmonte League title and through three rounds of the Southern Section 5-A Division baseball playoffs, went poof Friday at Esperanza in a 10-1 debacle.

Esperanza, the third-place team from the Empire League, needed a wild-card game to get to the first round. But the Aztecs battered Simi Valley ace Scott Sharts for eight runs in 2 innings Friday.

The barrage included two home runs in the first inning that gave Esperanza a 3-0 advantage.

Doug Saunders hit the first on an 0-1 fastball from Sharts with one out and a man on. Jason Moler followed one batter later with a line-drive homer over the center-field fence for a 3-0 lead.

“He didn’t have anything today,” said Saunders, whose second homer of the game and ninth of the season--a solo shot in the fourth--gave Esperanza a 9-0 lead. “His fastball wasn’t hopping and his curveball was kind of flat.”

The loss was Sharts’ first in 11 decisions this season and his fifth in 25 career decisions.

While Esperanza’s bats came alive for three runs in the first, five in the third and one each in the fourth and sixth innings, the Pioneers went quietly against Moler, the Aztec starter. Moler (5-2) gave up four hits and did not walk a batter in five innings.

Although Saunders and Moler are seniors, they will be teammates again next season: Both have accepted baseball scholarships and will attend the University of Illinois.

Simi Valley (23-6) scored its lone run in the fifth when Jesse Anguiano doubled home Marcus Lockwood.

“I wouldn’t count on anything better than that,” said Moler, who usually plays third base.

This against a team that had beaten its first two playoff opponents by a combined score of 14-5. Sharts, who owns the Southern Section record for home runs with 32, was 0 for 3 and he struck out in his final at-bat.

“To me, (Moler) looked like a fierce competitor,” Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers said. “He and Saunders both.

“Moler threw his guts out. Every pitch was like his last.”

In kind, Esperanza’s lineup tore out Simi Valley’s heart with 11 hits--nine in the first four innings. Moler had four hits, including his first-inning homer, an RBI double in the third and a run-scoring single in the sixth. Greg Hauser, Rick Pressel and David Allen also drove in runs in the third.

“No matter what I did, they hit it hard,” Sharts said. “I was just a sitting duck out there. It’s so upsetting now because I didn’t want to end the season like this.”

For Esperanza, however, the season goes on. The Aztecs (20-8) play Beverly Hills, a 9-3 winner over Nogales, in the semifinals Tuesday at a site to be determined.

Should Esperanza win, it would be its third consecutive trip to the final. The Aztecs were 4-A champions in 1986--the year they knocked off Simi Valley in the semifinals--and runners-up to Lakewood last year,

Mike Curran, the Esperanza coach, chose not to look that far ahead. Or back.

“I’ll tell you what, I was scared to death going in,” he said. “I don’t think our kids were, though.”