Simi Valley Falls Short Once Again : Millikan’s 6-3 Victory Provides a Familiar Postscript for Pioneers

In baseball parlance, it’s known as warning-track power.

For the fifth time since 1982--and the third season in a row--Simi Valley High lost a playoff game in the quarterfinal round. This time, the Pioneers fell, 6-3, to visiting Long Beach Millikan in a Southern Section 5-A Division game.

The warning-track label doesn’t mean Simi Valley has never won a big game. Far from it. The Pioneers are 18-9 in playoff games since 1980, including two trips to the semifinals. However, as he has done too often for his tastes, Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers was left standing on the infield grass, explaining away a playoff loss.

“In a game like this,” he said, “you need some breaks. They got every break imaginable and we got none.

“It seems like they always had the momentum. Every play seemed to be an exciting play for them and a downer for us.”

Scyphers, though, maintained that he was satisfied with the success of the Pioneer program, despite all the near-misses in the playoffs.

“I don’t get tired of being in the playoffs,” he said. “There’s only one team that can win it all. There’s a lot of teams who would love to be where we are.

“One of these years we’ll put it together.”

But it wasn’t to be this year as Millikan (20-8), runner-up in the Moore League, mixed in a lot of little ball, an occasional display of power, solid pitching by right-hander David Mauss and, yes, several good breaks to advance to the semifinals against Hacienda Heights Wilson.

The Rams scored a run in the first on three soft singles and a sacrifice fly off Simi Valley starter Mike Jenkins. They added two more in the second on a rally started by a pop-up to shallow right field lost in the sun by Simi Valley second baseman Jesse Anguiano. A hit batter followed, then a two-run double by Todd Taylor.

Millikan led, 3-1, with Anguiano accounting for the the Pioneers’ scoring with a leadoff home run in the first inning. Mauss (11-3) didn’t allow another hit until the fourth inning but then struggled in the sixth and seventh. His three-year playoff record is 6-0.

“After that home run, I think most kids would cave in,” Millikan Coach Dan Peters said. “But he pitched his guts out. He had very average stuff today.”

The Rams provided support with a run in each of the last three innings, and Simi Valley’s only reply was Mike Jenkins’ two-run homer in the sixth that made the score 5-3. Jenkins (9-1), who went 5 1/3 innings, was the losing pitcher. It was the senior’s first varsity loss in 14 decisions.

Scyphers was able to find some positive aspects in a season that included 23 wins and only four losses, but others were not as generous.

Junior first baseman Kenny Hood, like many of his teammates, thought that this Pioneer team had enough to carry over the warning track and out of the ballpark.

“We had it all--pitching, hitting,” Hood said. “Get a few bad breaks . . . It’s just, like, devastating.”