Toros Losing Games, Coaches’ Confidence

Even when given the opportunity, Cal State Dominguez Hills baseball Coach George Wing and his top assistant, Eric Mihkelson, found it difficult to see encouragement Saturday afternoon. Not after the Toros had dropped the final two games of their five-game set with Chapman College.

“At this stage, it all boils down to how deep it hurts and what to do if we are to turn this around,” explained Wing, who appeared glum after a 9-8 loss Friday afternoon in Orange and a 9-1 shellacking in Carson Saturday at the hands of the Panthers.

The Toros lost four straight in the five-game set to Chapman and fell to 5-8 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. (10-12-2 overall). Chapman moved to 7-5 in the CCAA (16-12 overall).

Dominguez Hills, which tied sixth-ranked Cal State Long Beach 6-6 earlier in the week in a non-conference tilt, has won just one of its last eight contests and is rapidly backing into the critical 10-loss mark in CCAA play, a point in the 30-game schedule that Wing feels is a death knell for post-season consideration.

“I feel like we still have a chance,” said Wing, a second-year coach. “If we can just get through the doldrums . . . before it is too late.”

Despite the slump, Wing has reason to take heart. In the past three years the Toros were helplessly out of contention by now. In his first season, the Toros were seven games below .500 at this point.

Injuries (some are beginning to call it the Dominguez diamond jinx) have once again played a part in Wing’s fortunes. Four key players have been sidelined in the last eight days, including the team’s hottest hitter, infielder Darrell Conner, who has a possible wrist fracture.

Friday’s game at Hart Park in Orange was a heartbreaker for the Toros. Dominguez Hills scored four runs in the top of the first, but Chapman countered with five in its half of the inning.

The Panthers extended their lead to 7-4 after four innings, but Dominguez Hills whittled away until it took an 8-7 advantage in the top of the seventh. But in the bottom of the eighth inning, with two out, first baseman Doug Yates, who homered last week against Dominguez Hills to help Chapman pull out a victory in the late innings, hit a two-two fastball for a two-run home run.

Toro Robert Campbell got a bloop triple with one out in the top of the ninth, but Campbell chose not to try to score on Johnny Blood’s ground-out to shortstop, and then Marty Williams looked at a called third strike to end the game.

On Saturday, left-handed pitcher Armando Gomez (4-2) surrendered 17 hits in 8 2/3 innings of work. He has dropped two straight games.

So as Wing and Mihkelson, the team’s offensive signal-caller, stood near the third-base line after Saturday’s game, Wing found praise hard to muster, even when pressed. After some head scratching, he said the team had character and he hopes it will shake the mid-season slump soon.

“You see any bright spots, Eric?” Wing asked Mihkelson.

“Depends on how these guys take this,” he said.

Reality is, the Toros have to sweep every CCAA game they play from now on, said Wing, and that includes a three-game series with league-leading UC Riverside April 5-7.