Kennedy Beats Granada Hills to Set Up Showdown

A woman peering out a second-story window of her apartment on Hiawatha Street, located a few dozen yards from the baseball field at Granada Hills High, froze Tuesday when she realized that a baseball was heading her way.

The home run ball bounced once in the street and ricocheted off her apartment’s exterior wall, inches from a plate-glass window. By then, out of self-preservation, the woman had dived for cover and did not reappear.

She missed a great comeback.

Behind John Davis’ sixth-inning grand slam and some superlative defensive play, Kennedy rallied to defeat Granada Hills, 8-4, and move within a half-game of the first-place Highlanders in North Valley League play with one game remaining in the regular season.

Granada Hills (16-7-1, 11-4-1 in league play) will visit Kennedy (15-8, 11-5) on Thursday at 3 p.m. in a game that will decide the league championship.

While it was Davis’ home run that blocked Granada Hills’ bid for its first league title since 1986, David Bourne did his share of blocking too.

Bourne, a sophomore catcher, turned the tide in the pivotal fifth inning. The Highlanders led, 4-2, and had runners at first and third with one out when pitcher Mike McMullen (7-2) fired to third base and picked off Erik Anderson.

Anderson was tossed out at the plate as he bowled over Bourne in an attempt to score. He was then tossed from the game for intentionally running over a player--an automatic ejection in high school baseball.

“It was a total balk move,” said Anderson, who had orders to take a stutter-step lead as the batter faked a suicide-squeeze bunt. “One of their guys told me they cheat on that play all the time.”

Bourne was knocked head over heels.

“I think I’ll have a black eye from that one,” he said. “I played football and I never got hit that hard.”

The Highlanders’ title hopes, at least for the day, would soon go up in another cloud of dust. Heath McElwee, who moved from first to second when Anderson was picked off, tried to score on Robert Vasquez’s single but was shot down on a relay from left fielder Jeff Tagliaferri to third baseman Joe Bernas to Bourne.

This wasn’t just a shift in momentum, this was plate tectonics. Right-hander Bryan Martin, whose three-run homer gave Granada Hills a 3-1 lead in the first, was rocked in the sixth. Bourne and his brother Troy started the inning with singles. One out later, John Toven singled to load the bases.

Davis, whose only other home run beat Chatsworth in the bottom of the seventh, drilled a 1-and-0 fastball into the street and off the apartment wall.

“It was right in the blue zone,” Davis said, referring to the pitch’s location.

More like blue heaven. The slam gave Kennedy a 6-4 lead and handed Martin (7-1) his first loss. As the ball towered off Davis’ bat, Martin covered his eyes with his glove. He allowed eight runs (seven earned) on 15 hits in 6 2/3 innings, struck out three and walked none.

Consequently, Kennedy, with one senior among starting position players, is one victory from an improbable league title.

“No more rooks,” Coach Manny Alvarado said of the rapidly aging rookies on his team. “I’m thrilled to have our destiny in our own hands.”

Call it a window of opportunity.