Canyons Loses Momentum, Falls From Baseball Playoffs

Before his team took the field against Fullerton College on Saturday, Canyons Coach Len Mohney gathered his players and said, “I’m going to go to war for 18 innings today. If you want to join me, fine.”

Trailing by a game in the best-of-three first round of the Southern California junior college baseball regional, Canyons temporarily staved off elimination with a 7-3 first-game victory. But Canyons ran out of firepower in the decisive second game and was beaten, 9-5, after failing to score in the final six innings.

Seventh-seeded Canyons (25-15), which lost only three home games during the regular season, dropped two of three on its own field against ninth-seeded Fullerton (26-14) in the weekend series.

In the second game Saturday, Canyons shelled Fullerton starter Matt Lipscomb with five runs in the third inning to take a 5-1 lead but managed only one hit thereafter. Fullerton scored eight unanswered runs and will now move on to an 11 a.m. game Friday against Moorpark at Riverside City College in one of two four-team Southern California regional finals.

Jon Beauchemin opened Canyons’ third with a solo home run, Billy Horvat had an RBI single and Steve Kovacic ended the barrage with a three-run home run.

“I think we got a little excited when we got up 5-1, and our swings got a little long,” Mohney said. “I knew there was a lot of game left.”

There was a lot of game left in Lipscomb, a game right-hander who bounced back to throw his first complete game of the season.

“I thought a lot of their batters were overeager,” Lipscomb said. “They were popping a lot of outside fastballs up.”

Lipscomb (3-3), who faced only 20 batters during the last six innings, said that he threw more curves than he had in any other game this season.

“The thing is, he threw them for strikes,” Kovacic said.

Fullerton began to chip away at Canyons’ lead with two runs in the fourth and another in the fifth off starter Lance Gibson (4-5). Fullerton took a 7-5 lead when it scored three more runs off Gibson and reliever Jeff Adams in the seventh and added a pair of solo home runs in the eighth.

Roland De La Maza (7-1) won the earlier game, allowing one earned run in 8 2/3 innings. Horvat and J. R. Trujillo hit home runs for Canyons.