SOUTHERN SECTION CHAMPIONSHIPS : Baseball Titles Slip Past Saugus, Hart : Indians Lose to Cerritos in 4-A Final

Hart High, which had scored 57 runs in four playoff games, was held to four hits by Cerritos and lost the Southern Section 4-A Division championship game, 4-1, Saturday night at Dodger Stadium.

The Indians (23-7) fell victim to a wicked side-arm slider thrown by right-hander Mark Mattingly, who won his fourth game in the playoffs. Mattingly (11-2) saved the only postseason game he didn’t win.

“His fastball wasn’t thrown hard at all,” Hart catcher Casey Burrill said. “But that was a true slider. We’ve seen sliders before, but nothing that wouldn’t fall.”

Mattingly’s pitches made Hart batters fall. Fall behind in the count. Fall back on their heels. Fall back to the dugout after being retired.

Burrill got the only Hart hit in the first four innings--a single--off a fastball.

The Indians’ defensive miscues, however, were more devastating than Mattingly’s sliders.

Hart, which averaged one error a game, committed four errors, two of which came in the fourth inning when Cerritos took a 2-0 lead. Third baseman David Toledo overthrew first base on consecutive routine plays in the fourth.

“I think our defense was trying to do too many things right,” said Toledo, who had committed just five errors during the season before commiting three against Cerritos. “We just weren’t playing relaxed.”

Said Coach Bud Murray, who spent most of the postgame ceremony consoling Toledo: “It’s too bad it happened to that kid. . . . He’s a hell of a player.”

Hart mounted its only substantial rally in the fifth, but it was squelched by an outstanding defensive play.

After Burrill led off the inning with a fly out to deep center field, Chris Vasquez tripled down the first-base line. Jason Edwards singled to center to score Vasquez, then Toledo followed with a double to the left-field wall, advancing Edwards to third.

Jay Sanford popped up to shortstop for the second out, however, and left fielder Doug Nelson made a spectacular sliding catch of Lance Migita’s looping hit over shortstop to end the inning.

“When I got really close to it, I knew I had it for sure,” Nelson said of the inning-ending catch. “It was the greatest feeling of my life. I thought, ‘God, How’d I do that.’ Amazing.”

Mattingly said that he plans to reward Nelson for the play.

“I’m going to take him out to lunch,” he said. “That was the turnaround of the game.”

Cerritos (27-6) scored two more runs in the fifth when Robert Hinds, who reached base on a bunt and advanced to third on a balk by Andrew Lorraine and a single by Curt Knabe, came home on Cobi Cradle’s sacrifice fly. Knabe, who moved to third on a single and a fielder’s choice, took advantage of Lorraine’s slow windup and stole home for the Dons’ final run.

Hart’s Darin Tsukashima led off the sixth with a single, then stole second, but the next three batters popped out. The Indians were retired in order in the seventh.

Lorraine (9-5) struck out eight, including the side in the third, and scattered six hits.

“I figured if we were going to lose, I wanted to be the one out there to lose it,” Lorraine said.

That he was, but Lorraine and his teammates could be consoled by the fact that the Indians advanced three rounds further than last year’s Hart team, which won its first 25 games before losing to Fullerton in the second round.