AMERICAN LEGION STATE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT : Bromberg Moves West Within Victory of Title

Corey Bromberg nearly worked himself into a lather the night before the most important start of his young career, for Woodland Hills West in the third round of the American Legion state baseball tournament on Monday.

He tossed. He turned. He buried his head in the pillow.

He then repeated the sequence, thought not necessarily by choice. It seems that a few high-spirited teammates tossed and turned him some more late Sunday night.

Bromberg, in his first year with West, was being officially welcomed to the club while sleeping. His teammates held him down and jokingly threatened to shave him from head to toe if he didn’t win Monday.

The next morning, Bromberg and West more than pinned down Stockton, 11-1, in a game that was called in the bottom of the seventh inning because of the 10-run rule. West, 34-6 overall and 3-0 in the double-elimination tournament, has automatically qualified for a berth in the regionals on Aug. 15-20 in either Union City, Calif., or Eugene, Ore.

West plays Escondido (15-3) for the state championship today at 10 a.m. If West loses, a second game will be played in the afternoon. A win by West in either game would mean a state title, something that eluded the team last season en route to its World Series title.

Bromberg (7-1) struck out four, walked none and recorded 18 of the first 19 outs via fly ball (16) or strikeout (three) Monday. His defense--particularly left fielder Chris Castillo and center fielder Jeff Marks--repeatedly bailed Bromberg out by pulling down an assortment of loopers and liners in the gaps and at the fence.

Staked to a 6-0 lead after three innings--by which time West had banged out 11 of its 16 hits--Bromberg reared back and fired. And he came within a whisker of the tournament’s only shutout.

Leading, 10-0, in the top of the seventh, he needed three outs for the game to be halted because of the 10-run rule. But Stockton (25-4) strung together a single, double and a run-scoring ground out--its only two-hit inning of the game--to crawl within 10-1.

West put the game away in the bottom of the inning on Bobby Kim’s run-scoring hit off the fence in left field.