Ragged Play Costs Reseda in Playoffs, 9-5 : Newhall-Saugus Limps to First-Round Victory

This was a playoff game?

For 3 1/2 hours Wednesday, Newhall-Saugus (Santa Clarita) and Reseda played the kind of baseball that makes the floor of a tobacco-stained dugout appealing.

There were four errors that led to four unearned runs. There were 14 walks and six wild pitches. Three runners were picked off.

“It was a pretty ragged game,” Reseda Coach Howie Shwartzer said.

In the end, Saugus pulled itself together in time to limp away with a 9-5 win in a District 20 playoff opener at The Master’s College.

“I don’t want to do that again,” Saugus Coach Tom Pedersen said.

Unless Saugus (22-5) is considering an audition for The Bad News Bears Invade the Santa Clarita Valley, his wish is understandable. A batter-interference call thwarted one Saugus rally, two runners were picked off to end a bases-loaded, one-out threat and a two-base Saugus throwing error opened the door for Reseda to walk out of the fifth inning with a 4-3 lead.

“The kids get hyped in these playoff games and sometimes it changes the level of play,” Pedersen said.

Saugus didn’t rise above its mistakes until the seventh, when Gary Morgan and Don Pedersen led off with consecutive doubles and Tom Dodson singled to give Saugus a 7-4 lead.

Reseda, which had an 11-game winning streak snapped, pulled to within 7-5 in the eighth on Mike Aranzullo’s run-scoring single and had the tying run on second with one out. But Roger Salkeld struck out Mike Vanacore and retired Kevin Ogle on a line out to second.

“We worked hard to come from behind and had a chance to tie, but Salkeld really shut us off,” Shwartzer said.

Salkeld (7-1) struck out 11 and allowed only five hits in a complete-game effort, but he walked nine and threw 175 pitches. Saugus battered Andy Rangel (6-2) for 14 hits in seven innings.

Darrell Davis was 4 for 5 and had two stolen bases for Saugus. Brad Anderson, Pedersen and Salkeld each added two hits for Saugus, which meets Van Nuys-Notre Dame today at 3 p.m. at Birmingham High.

Reseda (18-9), which plays Chatsworth today at 11 a.m. at Master’s, scored three times in the fifth on just one hit to take a 4-3 lead. Vanacore led off with a single, Ogle walked and both scored when Salkeld threw Mike Shwartzer’s sacrifice bunt into right field. Shwartzer went to second on Don Calabria’s bunt and scored on two wild pitches.

Saugus tied the score in the fifth on Cory Byars’ sacrifice fly, then took a 5-4 lead in the sixth on Anderson’s two-out single.