Prep Baseball Roundup : Mission Viejo Gets Back on Track

Troy Kopp pitched a two-hitter and Don Disbro hit two home runs and had six runs batted in Wednesday to lead Mission Viejo High School to a 7-0 South Coast League baseball victory at El Toro.

The victory lifted Mission Viejo (12-5 overall, 5-3 in league play) into a tie for second place with El Toro (13-6) with seven games to play. Both teams are one game behind Capistrano Valley (13-6, 5-3).

“It’s nice to be in the race where we are,” Mission Viejo Coach Ron Drake said. “We lost two games last week to a pretty good ballclub (Capistrano Valley), and it was nice to see the kids respond the way they did today.”

El Toro starter Rob Johnson (6-2), who pitched five innings, started the game by walking Jon Hayes. Hayes then stole second and went to third when Kopp’s one-out grounder went under third baseman Scott Sebo’s glove for an error.

Disbro gave the Diablos a 3-0 lead with a home run over the left-field fence.

Disbro, who extended Mission Viejo’s lead to 4-0 with a run-scoring single in the fourth, highlighted a three-run fifth inning with a two-run homer. One out later, Jeff Hawkins closed out the scoring with an RBI single.

“(Disbro) did a good job of hitting on both his home runs,” said El Toro Coach Dan DeLeon, whose team committed five errors. “He hit a mistake pitch on his first homer and timed a fastball on his second homer. We didn’t do a good job of competing on the field and the kid (Kopp) did a good job of mixing his pitches and changing speeds to keep us off balance.”

Kopp (6-3), who didn’t walk a batter, gave up hits in the first and second innings. After that, the only El Toro baserunners came on Mission Viejo errors in the fourth and fifth innings and a hit batter in the third.