AMERICAN LEGION DISTRICT 20 PLAYOFFS : West Finds Way to Win Again, Rips Quartz Hill

Don Hornback, coach of the Woodland Hills West American Legion baseball team, won’t concede his task is easy but he does admit that “the toughest job I have is reminding them they can lose.”

Losing is something the defending World Series champions have experienced just once in their past 21 games. And even when it is supposed to lose, West often winds up winning easily.

Thursday’s playoff game with Quartz Hill offers a case in point. West stranded 16 baserunners and left the bases loaded four times.

But it also pushed seven runs across for a 7-3 victory at Pierce College.

West (21-4) will meet rival Woodland Hills East, a winner over Sun Valley on Thursday, in the third round of the double-elimination tournament today at Birmingham High at 4 p.m. Both teams are undefeated in tournament play.

Quartz Hill (19-6) will play Glendale (19-7) in an elimination game today at Birmingham at 1.

“I just hope tomorrow we have the opportunity to leave a whole lot of runners on base because we’ll have a lot of hits,” Hornback said. “They really believe they’re going to win every game. Even if they’re down a lot in the late innings, they still think they’re going to win because of what they did last year.”

West, which has won 18 in a row, fell behind again Thursday as Quartz Hill took advantage of three hits and a West error to take a 2-0 lead in the first.

But West answered quickly, scoring twice in both the first and second innings to take a 4-2 advantage.

Jeff Marks singled with one out in the West first and scored on Del Marine’s triple to the right-field corner. Cleanup hitter Jason Cohen’s infield single pushed across Marine to tie the score, 2-2.

After retiring the first two hitters in the second, Quartz Hill starter Ron Turner (5-2) surrendered consecutive singles to Chris Castillo and Paul Geller and walked Marks to load the bases.

Marine then drove a two-run single up the middle to give West the lead for good.

Quartz Hill pulled to within 4-3 in the fourth when Marks lost Roy Brown’s fly in the sun. Brown was credited with a triple on the play, then came home when the relay from second baseman Geller bounced into foul territory.

West put the game away in the eighth, sending nine batters to the plate and scoring three times.

Turner hit Marine and, after an out, Bobby Kim singled. Designated-hitter Greg Lederman walked to load the bases.

After Greg Sheren struck out, it looked as if West again was going to leave the bases loaded without scoring when Sean Boldt, the West pitcher, grounded to short. But Bryan Lovelace’s throw to Chris Grissom at second was wild, allowing Marine and Kim to score.