Sharts, Vigo Lift CSUN With Key Home Runs

Just as Cal State Northridge was about to be enveloped by darkness and its own error-prone play Friday, Scott Sharts, Denny Vigo and a soon-to-be beleaguered relief ace named Jamy Villa reduced the game of baseball to its basics.

The result was an unlikely 10-9 victory for CSUN over California Collegiate Athletic Assn. foe Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Villa, Dominguez Hills’ hard-throwing closer, faced Sharts, CSUN’s Sultan of Swat, with one on, two out, and the Toros clinging to a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Then George Wing, Dominguez Hills’ coach, sauntered to the mound. Keep the ball in on his hands, Wing told his ace right-hander. Nothing out over the plate.

The count went to three balls and two strikes and Villa did exactly what he was told not to do: He threw a fastball over the outside portion of the plate.

It was last seen sailing over the fence in right center field--Sharts’ third home run in three hours. It ties the score.

Up stepped Vigo, CSUN’s other Matador of Muscle, as Northridge Coach Bill Kernen offered a tip for his sophomore slugger as the sun dipped under the horizon.

Kernen, fearing that the umpire was about to suspend the game because of darkness, wanted to make sure the previous two runs would count. Swing for the fence, he told Vigo. If you strike out, we’re tied and we can start all over another day. And if you hit it . . .

Vigo soon addressed that possibility, blasting a full-count fastball high over the left-field fence to keep CSUN undefeated in three CCAA games, 8-5 overall.

“Really, we dodged a bullet,” Kernen said. “We made a baserunning error, we threw the ball around on defense and we didn’t throw strikes.

“But we did hit the ball well.”

Indeed. Northridge punched out 14 hits, including five home runs--a school-record-tying three by Sharts and two by Vigo--against a trio of Toro pitchers.

Vigo’s game-winner--his fourth homer in three games--afforded the Matadors an opportunity to forget, at least temporarily, three errors, seven walks, and a base-running blunder by Greg Shockey that almost cost them the game.

Shockey led off the bottom of the ninth with a single, advanced to second when Eric Johnson walked, then was caught in a rundown when he failed to break for third on a hit-and-run play.

Reliever Todd Denhart pitched a rather shaky 4 2/3 innings to pick up his second victory. Denhart allowed three runs, two earned, on six hits, and he walked one and struck out six after replacing starter Monte Jones.

Northridge led, 6-3, after four innings, scoring twice in the first, twice in the third--on back-to-back homers by Sharts and Vigo--and two more in the fourth on a two-run blast by Sharts, who would finish with four hits and six runs batted in.

Dominguez (6-4-1, 0-1) took the lead with a four-run fifth inning, then added two more in the seventh. CSUN pushed over an unearned run in the seventh.