Southern Section 3-A Baseball Playoffs : Don Goodbrand Recovers in Time, Lifts El Toro Past Saddleback, 10-7

It’s been a long month for Don Goodbrand, the ace of El Toro High School’s pitching staff.

Goodbrand suffered tendinitis in his right shoulder on April 27 that sidelined him for several weeks. He lost his spot in the starting rotation to freshman Rob Johnson and failed to make an appearance in four postseason games.

Goodbrand arrived at practice on Monday morning with a black eye that he said he accidently incurred over the weekend.

But Goodbrand, right eye blackened, provided some big relief in El Toro’s 10-7 victory over Saddleback Tuesday in a Southern Section 3-A division semifinal game at UC Irvine.

Goodbrand (7-1), who pitched four innings in relief of starter Rob Johnson, allowed four hits and only one earned run as the Chargers became the fifth team from the South Coast League to qualify for a championship game in the past six years.

El Toro (18-13) will meet La Mirada (21-6-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday in Anaheim Stadium for the 3-A title. La Mirada advanced with an 8-7 victory over second-seeded Chino.

El Toro collected 13 hits off two Saddleback pitchers, including 4 by center fielder Dave Nemeth. But the Chargers also allowed as many runs--six--through four innings as they did in four previous games before Goodbrand quieted Saddleback.

“This felt great,” Goodbrand said. “I just wanted to get in any game, any way. I had never been hurt for longer than a week, so it wasn’t much fun. I was feeling left out and was wondering if I was ever going to contribute to the team again.”

Goodbrand got his opportunity when Johnson failed to protect a 6-0 lead that El Toro built in two innings. Saddleback scored five times in the third inning to cut the deficit to 6-5 and when Johnson hit Jose DeSantiago to open the fourth, El Toro Coach Dan DeLeon didn’t hesitate to go to Goodbrand.

“When I said, ‘Donnie, get up to the bullpen,’ you saw sparks fly from his feet,” DeLeon said.

“I told Rob to just throw strikes, but he made a mistake by getting a pitch up to (Neil) Carter for the (two-run) homer, then he hit the kid and I had to take him out. Guess what? Our pitching fails and our hitters come through.”

The opening five hitters in El Toro’s lineup were hitting .429 or better in the playoffs and they continued their hot hitting Tuesday.

Leadoff batter Brian McNamara extended his hitting streak to 14 games with two singles. He also scored three runs. Third baseman Adam Brass added two singles and designated hitter Tim Jurkowski had a double and two RBIs.

Reserves Greg Miller and Scott Toppo also contributed to the Chargers’ victory. Toppo and Miller hit run-scoring singles in the fifth inning to key a four-run rally that erased Saddleback’s 7-6 lead.

Defensively, Sean Drinkwater made several fine plays at shortstop and Nemeth made an excellent running catch in center field to rob Carter of a base hit with two outs and the bases loaded in the fourth inning.

Saddleback (22-7) committed four errors and failed to get any production from either George Saldana or Paul O’Hearn, the fourth and fifth batters in the lineup.