Bennett Pitches Encino-Crespi to Legion Win

Encino-Crespi Coach Scott Muckey was casually engaged in postgame conversation Saturday when his ace pitcher, side-arming right-hander Dan Carroll, wandered by wearing shower clogs and mumbled something unintelligible.

“What was he talking about?” Muckey asked a pair of bystanders.

“Couldn’t tell,” they answered in unison.

“Damn side-armers,” said a grinning Muckey, who is also the baseball coach at Crespi High. “They’re almost as bad as lefties.”

And when you don’t have any lefties, side-armers will have to suffice, and nobody develops them better than Muckey, who used yet another side-arming convert to beat Woodland Hills East, 6-3, in a District 20 Western Division game at Taft High.

Encino-Crespi (12-8) and East (13-8) will play again at 5 p.m. today at Valley College to decide which team will advance to the playoffs as the second-place team from the Western Division. The second game of Saturday’s scheduled doubleheader was canceled when the umpires left after the opener was completed and replacements could not be found.

Muckey’s latest project at Crespi is right-hander Pat Bennett who, by his own admission, “wasn’t getting it done at all throwing overhand” and was converted last fall. Bennett (4-2), however, has made definite progress since the switch and he torpedoed East on eight hits to win for the second time in five days.

“He changed me over last winter,” Bennett said of Muckey, who asked Carroll to throw side-arm two seasons ago. “At the time, he didn’t really know where I fit in. I was doing some catching, playing third base, and as a pitcher, I didn’t have it.”

Against East, Bennett had plenty, especially early when he faced only 10 batters in the first three innings. Even when East scored a run in the fourth to close to within 4-1, Bennett didn’t seem to be in serious trouble; the East rally consisted of an infield single, a ground single up the middle, a bunt single and a hit batter with the bases loaded.

With the help of two Encino-Crespi errors, East added two runs in the sixth to cut the lead to 6-3, but Bennett, who will be a senior in the fall, retired the side in order in the seventh to give his team its fifth win in six games.

Bennett’s only jam came in the sixth. After nearly being hit by a pitch, leadoff batter Glenn Nahmias tripled to left-center, then started jawing at Bennett after arriving at third base. Thirty seconds later, the jawing stopped and Nahmias was back in the dugout after being picked off.

As it turned out, East scored two runs in the inning, which finally ended when Bennett got Rich Shapiro to ground into a 4-6-3 double play, the third of the game for Encino-Crespi.

Red hot Vic Seper helped give Encino-Crespi a 3-0 lead in the first with a run-scoring single to right. Seper drove in another run in the third with a double to left-center to give him 10 hits in as many at-bats. The streak was halted in the fourth when Seper grounded out with the bases loaded.

After allowing three runs on four hits in the first, right-hander Eric Rothman (3-3) settled down and allowed only one earned run over the next six innings. A fielding miscue in the sixth finally did him in.

With the bases loaded and two out, Encino-Crespi’s Mark Maurizi lofted a fly ball to shallow right field. Second baseman Mike Kimelman, center fielder Jason Shapiro and right fielder Rich Shapiro converged, but Rich Shapiro dropped the ball for a two-base error. Two runs scored to give Encino-Crespi a 6-1 lead.