College Roundup : Cavaretta’s Home Runs Pace Valley, 14-3

The only thing hotter than the sun that bore down on the Valley College baseball field Tuesday was the bat of Monarch first baseman Mark Cavaretta.

Cavaretta, a sophomore from Crespi High, blasted two home runs, including a grand slam, to lead the Monarchs to a 14-3 victory over College of the Canyons to conclude the first half of Western State Conference play.

Valley improved to 21-5-1 overall and 6-4 in the WSC. Canyons is 14-12 and 7-3 in conference play.

Cavaretta, who had only one home run entering the game, hit a two-run shot over the right-field fence off losing pitcher Jeff Frith-Smith (5-5) during the Monarchs’ five-run first inning.

“CJ (Valley Coach Chris Johnson) was saying, ‘Look for the change-up,’ ” Cavaretta said, “And that’s exactly what he threw.”

Cavaretta’s grand slam came in the third inning off former Crespi teammate Dan Carroll and staked Valley to 10-1 lead.

“That was my buddy on the mound and he threw me a fastball,” said Cavaretta, who also had a single to raise his average to a team-high .420 and finished with six runs batted in. “For the first time in my career, I felt bad that I did that.”

Canyons’ players must have been feeling pretty low themselves, trying to battle back against Valley left-hander Joey Kane (6-3), who scattered 10 hits in pitching a complete game.

“I didn’t feel I had to really pinch the corners too much because we had a lead,” said Kane, who struck out four and walked two. “I just wanted to keep pumping them in there.”

Five Canyons pitchers tried to do the same with very different results, surrendering 14 hits and issuing 12 walks.

“I didn’t think our pitchers would make them healthy,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said. “They have not been an offensive power this season--they’ve had good games--but they hit them all today.”

It was a timely win for Valley, which was coming off consecutive conference losses to Bakersfield and Glendale.

During those two losses, the Monarchs committed 14 errors.

“Yesterday we went back to kind of a first-day-of-winter kind of practice, rolling balls to each other and simplifying the game,” said Johnson, whose team committed two errors Tuesday. “Today we tried not to even pay attention to them and just beat the game.

“A ball’s hit to you, field it, pitch to locations and hit the ball up the middle. Keep it simple.”