Gardena Beats San Pedro in League Baseball Opener

Patience may be an intangible virtue in baseball, but sometimes you can’t win without it.

Thursday afternoon, the outcome of the Southern-Pacific Conference opener between San Pedro and Gardena high schools hinged on which team wanted to wait the longest for the right pitch--or the right hop.

Visiting Gardena out-waited and outlasted San Pedro, 12-8.

Gardena chipped away for four runs in the top of the fourth inning to erase a 6-3 San Pedro lead. The Mohicans held on as San Pedro failed to cash in against Gardena junior left-hander Dane Woolwine in the late innings.

“Our guys got a little careless,” San Pedro Coach Jerry Lovarov said. “They all wanted to hit the ball out of the park instead of going with the pitch.”

Woolwine escaped with his first victory against one loss. He walked eight batters and struck out five in six innings.

Gardena (2-1) took advantage of some breaks to get the lead in the fourth. Woolwine hit a tailor-made double-play ball to San Pedro shortstop Jose Espinosa, but it took a wicked hop over Espinosa’s shoulder for an RBI single.

After Danny Liebsack’s sacrifice fly scored Scott Robertson from third, Gardena second baseman David Inana lined a triple into the left-center field gap to score Woolwine and tie the game at 6-6.

Mario Whitfield’s infield single drove home Inana and gave the Mohicans a 7-6 lead.

In the top of the fifth, Gardena patched together a five-run inning on a hit batter, a pair of walks and three soft hits.

“We got the timely hits today,” Gardena Coach Mike Sakurai said. “Usually in this park, San Pedro gets them. We’ve had our hearts broken lots of times in this park.”

Catcher Dale Johnson, an all-City selection last season for San Pedro, had a triple and a double in his first two at-bats and scored a pair of runs. But Johnson was ejected after an argument with the plate umpire with two runners on base in the bottom of the fifth.

San Pedro, the defending conference champions, fell to 3-1.

This week, the Pirates find themselves a bit thin in pitching.

Lovarov used five pitchers Tuesday in a 13-10 Westside tournament victory over Harvard, and used three more Thursday. The Pirates face Channel Islands this afternoon in another Westside game, and will play again Saturday in either the championship or consolation round.

In another Southern-Pacific Conference game:

Banning 7, Carson 0--Right-hander Mike Busby pitched a three-hit shutout over crosstown rival Carson, facing only 26 hitters along the way. Busby (1-1), a 6-foot-4 junior, struck out seven and walked one.

Third baseman Julian Pardo led Banning (2-2) with three hits, including a triple and a run batted in. Banning’s Raul Diaz and Jose Bernal both went 2-for-4.

Busby now has 17 strikeouts on the season. He was the losing pitcher in Banning’s 5-3 loss last week to Westminster in the El Segundo tournament.