El Segundo Beats San Marino, 7-4, for CIF Baseball Title

His sixth CIF-Southern Section title safely tucked away, El Segundo High baseball Coach John Stevenson met with reporters Saturday outside the third-base dugout at Dodger Stadium while Pat Llamas planned his devilish deed.

At the urging of teammates, the Eagles’ senior second baseman sneaked up behind his coach with a bucket of Gatorade and dumped the contents on an unsuspecting Stevenson.

“I heard somebody say, ‘Pour it on him, pour it on him,’ ” Llamas said. “It’s a good thing he wasn’t mad at me.”

Not on this day, anyway.

In a game Stevenson said he couldn’t have scripted any better, the Eagles scratched and clawed for a 7-4 victory over San Marino to capture the 2-A Division championship. All 16 players on the roster contributed to the win, El Segundo’s first in a CIF final since 1979.

“It’s the way you diagram it,” said the 30-year coach, who improved his career mark to 632-243. “It’s the best (CIF title) yet because it’s right now. You can’t live in the past and you can’t live in the future.”

But both were represented Saturday. Kansas City Royals slugger George Brett, a former El Segundo star, was in attendance and congratulated Stevenson in the locker room. On the field, the Eagles’ future was represented by the 10 underclassmen who played in the game.

“That’s the type of tradition El Segundo has,” said Stevenson, alluding to the presence of Brett, who is on the disabled list with a knee injury. “The loyalty of the whole (Brett) family is a big part of our baseball tradition.”

However, unlike some of El Segundo’s past championship teams, the 1989 Eagles were not considered an overpowering unit. Their pitchers didn’t strike out a lot of batters, their hitters didn’t hit a lot of home runs and their size--two-thirds of the players are under 6 feet tall--certainly didn’t intimidate opponents.

But they usually found a way to win.

Again that was the scenario Saturday, as the Eagles used the tenacious pitching of senior Rick Clark and an opportunistic offense to control the game against San Marino, which outhit El Segundo, 9-6, but was hurt by four errors.

“We forced our own breaks,” Stevenson said. “This is just a very competitive group of guys.”

El Segundo, the Camino Real League champion, finished the season with a 26-5 record and eight consecutive victories. San Marino, the third straight team from the Rio Hondo League to fall to El Segundo in the playoffs, wound up 22-4.

The Eagles never trailed after scoring three unearned runs in the second inning to take a 3-1 lead. They scored twice in the fourth to go up 5-2, and added two more runs in the fifth to make it 7-2. In those three innings, El Segundo needed just five hits to score seven runs.

San Marino Coach Mickey McNamee, who was going after his third CIF crown, blamed defense for his team’s downfall. Only two of El Segundo’s runs were earned.

“We did not make the defensive plays when we had to, and consequently they took advantage of our mistakes,” he said. “That’s what good teams do.

“We certainly hit the ball well. If we played defense, it could have been a different game.”

Although the Titans hit the ball hard at times, they couldn’t chase Clark from the mound. The right-hander improved to 10-0 with a performance that was a test of endurance.

It appeared Clark might get the hook after San Marino scored two runs in the top of the seventh to pull within 7-4. But, with a runner on first, the feisty 5-9, 140-pounder caught Robbie Santos looking at a called third strike on a curveball to end the game.

“I didn’t want to come out,” Clark said. “If they would have taken me out, I would have been mad. I knew I was going to finish. There’s no way we were going to lose that game.”

Stevenson said he had junior right-hander Rob Croxall ready in the bullpen from the first inning, but decided to stick with Clark because “of his heart.”

Surprisingly, it was not the heart of El Segundo’s lineup that did the most damage. Center fielder Erik Evans and catcher Garret Quaintance, the team’s heavy hitters all season, were each 0 for 2 with two walks while the bottom four hitters--Chris Lane, Llamas, Brett Newell and Mark Lewis--combined for six runs, three hits and two RBIs.

“This is the best way to end it for me,” said Llamas, who was 2 for 3 with two runs scored. “I’m just happy the team won. This is the best bunch of guys I’ve ever played with.”

El Segundo loaded the bases in the second on an error, a single to right-center field by Llamas and a bunt to the left side of the mound by Newell. Lewis followed with a run-scoring grounder and Jeremy Carr put the Eagles ahead to stay, 2-1, with a single that glanced off the mound to the left side of the infield. Newell scored the last run of the inning when he stole home after Carr intentionally got caught in a rundown between first and second.

In the fourth, Carr drove in Llamas, who had singled, with a groundout and Newell came home on a wild pitch by right-hander Dan Giddings (9-3).

Kenny Talanoa opened the fifth with a double to left, El Segundo’s only extra-base hit, and scored on the second of three errors by San Marino second baseman David Kadin. Lane, who had walked, scored the Eagles’ final run on a sacrifice fly to right by Lewis.

Defensively, the Eagles committed only two errors and turned in several outstanding plays. Perhaps the most impressive was by Evans, who robbed Santos of an extra-base hit in the sixth with a running catch in deep right-center field.

Since El Segundo led throughout the game, Stevenson could afford to play his entire roster. That seemed to give him the most pleasure.

“That is such a priorty with me,” he said. “To be able to play everybody makes the win twice as nice.”