After Wild First Inning, Harbor Defeats Cypress in Regionals

The public address system at Rancho Santiago College was playing cartoon theme songs before Harbor College’s Southern California regional playoff game Saturday against Cypress.

Maybe that’s why it was such a looney-tunes first inning for Harbor starting pitcher Pat Ahearne.

* First, there was the ground ball that exploded up out of the dirt off second baseman Mike Stone’s glove for a base hit.

* Then there was the curve ball that skipped past catcher Gus Mungaray and ended up in left field after Mungaray sailed it past third base, allowing a run to score.

* And then there was the routine pop fly into shallow left that shortstop Tony Liebsack misjudged, and turned it into an RBI single for Cypress’ Doug Yates.

And after Cypress scared up three runs in that inning, Ahearne was waiting for the 200-ton weight to drop.

Things returned to normal after that, however. Ahearne held Cypress scoreless after that, and Harbor (31-13) exploded for seven runs in the fifth for a come-from-behind 7-3 victory.

“I just had a little bad luck at the start,” said Ahearne, who scattered 10 hits across nine innings to improve his record to 10-4. “It seemed like when they hit the ball, no one was there or the ball would hit a perfect spot. But after that we worked out the little bugs.”

Harbor meets Cypress (33-14) in the championship game of the double-elimination tournament today at 11 a.m. at Rancho Santiago. If Harbor wins, it goes on to the state playoffs next week in Sacramento. If it loses, it will play a second game against Cypress later this afternoon to determine the regional champion.

“Some teams still don’t believe we’re for real, I guess,” said Harbor Coach Jim O’Brien. “But I guess when we’re on the bus or the plane for Sacramento, maybe then they’ll believe it.”

Harbor’s fifth-inning outburst made a believer of Cypress starter Dennis Burbank (12-5). Burbank, a 6-foot-4 right-handed transfer from Pepperdine, struck out four and allowed only one hit in his first four innings.

But Harbor jumped on the hard-throwing Burbank for six consecutive hits to open the fifth, including RBI singles by pinch hitter Frank Fields and center fielder Ryan Karp, and a run-scoring double by George Baker. Burbank got two outs, but then David Kushan lined a double.

“I think we were a little intimidated by Burbank’s size at the start,” O’Brien said. “But then the guys started coming back to the dugout saying that he was losing his speed.”

Ahearne, on the other hand, got stronger as the game went on. He pitched out of jams with two runners on base in each of his first five innings, but gave up only one hit after the fifth.

The defense sparkled behind Ahearne in the late innings as well. In the eighth, first baseman Danny Parente made a slipping, off-balance throw to Ahearne to get pinch-hitter Chris Hunt. On the next play, Liebsack ranged far up the middle at shortstop and gunned down Cypress’ Terry Tewell to take away another base hit.

Ahearne struck out six, and got Yates, Cypress’ clean-up hitter, to watch a fastball go by on the outside corner for strike three in the ninth with a runner on.

“I had a lot of time to rest in the dugout (while Harbor rallied in the fifth),” Ahearne said. “Now I get to sit back and hopefully watch a good game tomorrow and then get ready to go to Sacramento.”

Harbor got eight of its ten hits in the fifth inning, but made them count. Liebsack and Kushan led the Seahawks with two hits apiece.