Antelope Valley Wins Golden League Title

Antelope Valley High baseball Coach Ed t’Sas threw Palmdale a curve Friday in the form of pitcher Rick Nickols, and it worked to near perfection as the Antelopes defeated the host Falcons, 6-2, to win the Golden League championship.

Nickols, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound fastball pitcher, had been Antelope Valley’s closer for most of the season. But Raul McNaughton had struggled in his previous two starts and Chris Abbey had worked 6 1/3 innings of relief Tuesday, so t’Sas was forced to call on Nickols against Palmdale.

“I was hoping to get two innings out of Rick, three out of Raul, then close with Chris,” t’Sas said. “But then Rick goes out there and pitches a strong four, giving me twice what I was looking for.”

Nickols (3-1) gave up two hits and one run in his four-inning stint, struck out three and walked two. Abbey went the final three innings for his third save as Antelope Valley (12-9, 10-5 in league play) won its first Golden League title in three years.

Dan Salazar (3-1) took the loss for Palmdale (12-8, 9-6), which was looking for its first league championship since 1980.

The loss dropped the Falcons into a second-place tie with Saugus (13-9, 9-6) in the league standings, but Palmdale will enter next week’s Southern Section 3-A Division playoffs as the league’s No. 3 team because of its 1-2 record against Saugus.

“I was surprised they started Nickols,” Palmdale Coach Kent Bothwell said. “He pitched a lot better than I thought he would. We saw him earlier this season and he wasn’t that good.

“But he was on today.”

Nickols threw 53 pitches--all fastballs--and did not give up a hit until the fourth inning. By that time, Antelope Valley had a 4-0 lead.

“I just tried to throw hard strikes,” Nickols said. “I wasn’t throwing anything but fastballs, but I was hitting the corners pretty good.”

Palmdale scored a run off Nickols in the fourth to narrow its deficit to three runs, but Antelope Valley added two runs in the fifth to extend its margin to 6-1.

Actually, Antelope Valley scored all the runs it would need in the third.

With Chad Eberhardt at first and one out, Jack Cox singled. Jeff Whiteford followed with a single, scoring Eberhardt and sending Cox to second. After Todd Barnes singled in Cox, Peter Holt doubled to score Whiteford and Barnes to make the score 4-0.

Antelope Valley, which has won four consecutive games since losing three in a row, had to hold off a seventh-inning uprising.

Dan Salazar started the rally with a triple down the right-field line before scoring on Derek Gates’ bad-hop single. Luis Alcaraz popped out to first baseman George Boykins, but Anthony Ortega reached base on third baseman Holt’s fielding error and Rodney Williams singled to right to load the bases.

Abbey, however, got Jason Rose to strike out swinging at a 3-2 fastball and Jeff Pica grounded to Boykins to end the game.

“This is the greatest feeling in the world,” t’Sas said. “Not one of these kids has played on a Golden League championship team in any sport, so this is really special.”