Canyons Defeats Cuesta to Move Closer to Title

Emotions grew a little heated when College of the Canyons played Cuesta Saturday afternoon, but nothing has been hotter than the Cougars’ bats.

Canyons rapped 13 hits in posting a 7-5 Western State Conference win in a game that was played at the emotional pitch of a championship game.

Cuesta, which entered the day one game behind first-place Canyons, was pushing to remain in contention for its first conference title; perennial champion Canyons was trying to solidify its bid for another championship.

“We try to downplay (the game) a little bit,” Cuesta Coach Larry Lee said. “Baseball’s not a game you can get too emotional about, but it was definitely an emotional game.”

Willie Shoemaker and Angel Cordero could have been in the dugouts there was so much bench jockeying, and midway through the game, the home-plate umpire had to admonish both benches for their hostile words.

There was no stopping the Canyons offense, though.

In winning three WSC games in the past four days, Canyons had a total of 44 hits. Canyons (23-10, 14-3), which has three WSC games remaining, now leads Cuesta (20-13-2, 12-5) and Moorpark by two games.

All but one of Canyons’ starters hit safely, and Gary Morgan, J. R. Trujillo, Billy Horvat, Jon Beauchemin and Mike Kerber each had two hits.

However, Cuesta right-hander Paul Mayo kept Canyons off-balance in the early going with his drop-off-the-tabletop curve, and the score was tied, 1-1, after three innings.

“His breaking ball is as good a breaking ball as we’ve seen in a long time,” Canyons Coach Len Mohney said. “I think it was more his breaking ball than that we were being unaggressive.”

After twice striking out looking, shortstop Charlie Fowlks caught up with Mayo in the fourth inning and hit his fourth home run, a three-run shot to left center.

Cuesta battled back in the fifth with three runs off Canyons starter Roland DeLaMaza to tie the score, 4-4.

Trujillo and Beauchemin made a winner of DeLaMaza (6-1) when they had consecutive run-scoring singles in the bottom of the inning to put Canyons back ahead, 6-4.

“He battled,” Mohney said of DeLaMaza, who struck out four and allowed two solo home runs in his five-inning stint. “He kept us in the game, but his concentration was not very good for us today.”

Jeff Adams relieved DeLaMaza in the sixth and held Cuesta to one unearned run with four innings of two-hit pitching.

“Jeff Adams did a great job again,” Mohney said. “We never had that big of a lead. . . . I never felt good about it for some reason.”

Canyons added an insurance run in the eighth when Kerber scored Morgan with a single, and Adams retired the last seven men he faced to earn his fifth save.

Mayo (3-4) went the distance and struck out five for Cuesta, which has compiled its highest total of WSC wins.

Canyons left 11 men on base, including three in the seventh inning.