3 Victories Gives CLU District Baseball Title

In what must be the most eventful 8 1/2 hours in Cal Lutheran baseball history, the Kingsmen won three games Saturday to win the first National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 baseball tournament in school history.

The Kingsmen finished a suspended game against Cal Baptist, then knocked off top-seeded Azusa Pacific twice and managed to get out of Azusa before sundown.

Cal Lutheran (32-14), which lost its tournament opener before storming back to win its final four games, will advance to the NAIA Area 1 championships, scheduled for May 17-19 at Lewis & Clark in Portland, Ore.

“This was for (former CLU coaches) Al Schoenberger, Ron Stillwell and all the other players,” said Cal Lutheran Coach Rich Hill, who played on the last CLU team to make the district finals in 1983. “No one gave our kids a shot all year. It was an unbelievable effort.”

The Kingsmen won the title by defeating Azusa Pacific, 7-4 and 11-10, after completing a suspended game against Cal Baptist, which they won, 11-6.

The game against Cal Baptist had been suspended because of darkness Friday with the Kingsmen leading, 9-5, in the ninth inning. Cal Lutheran held on Saturday morning, earning the right to meet Azusa Pacific, which was undefeated in the four-team double-elimination tournament, meaning CLU had to beat the Cougars twice to become district champions.

Azusa Pacific (34-12), which won five district titles in the 1980s and was 25-3 against District 3 competition before Saturday, jumped to a 3-0 second-inning lead against CLU starter Mike Rooney. The Kingsmen got one run back on Blake Babki’s second-inning homer, and took a 4-3 lead on Leonard Matsumoto’s three-run homer in the fourth.

Dan Weis followed with a solo home run and Rooney (4-3) went the distance for the victory, forcing a second game.

The Kingsmen, getting homers from Weis and Peter Washington, staked starter Mike Clark to a 10-2 fourth-inning lead in the final, but Azusa Pacific scored six runs (only one earned) off Clark in the fifth to close to 10-8.

The Cougars got as close as 11-10 in the eighth inning, but reliever Chris Matkin, one of four CLU pitchers, forced a game-ending double play to save it for Clark (7-2) as darkness was setting in.

A key to the CLU tournament title was that the Kingsmen shackled District 3 Player of the Year Carlos Salazar most of the day. Salazar, who won the district triple crown, had just one single in eight at-bats before homering in the eighth inning of the finale.

Matkin, who pitched the final inning of the day’s opening game against Cal Baptist (35-18), earned his sixth save in the finale.

“It just feels great,” Matkin said. “The ball was really moving.”

Cal Lutheran had 20 hits, including five homers and six doubles.