Busby Makes Poly Latest Victim

The powerful right arm of Banning High’s Mike Busby held Poly to two hits and carried the top-seeded Pilots to a 5-1 victory in a City Section 4-A Division baseball playoff semifinal at Harbor College on Tuesday.

The Pilots (20-6), champions of the Southern Pacific Conference’s Pacific League, will face San Fernando in the 4-A championship game Friday at Dodger Stadium.

Poly ends its season at 24-4.

Busby (11-0), a 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior who threw a no-hitter against Van Nuys in the first round, shut down the hard-hitting Parrots with a mix of fastballs and curves.

“There’s no doubt he’s the premier pitcher in the City,” Poly Coach Jerry Cord said of Busby.

Busby struck out 11 of the 27 batters he faced, just two shy of his season-best 13. He has 107 strikeouts in 83 innings this season.

Banning Coach Syl Saavedra figured that Busby’s fastball, which was clocked in the high 80-m.p.h. range two weeks ago, would help carry the Pilots into the final.

“I had heard about (Poly’s) great hitting against Valley teams, and I know they beat the heck out of Chatsworth last week,” Saavedra said. “But good pitching will stop good hitting.”

Eight Poly starters entered the game with batting averages better than .300. Four days ago, Poly pounded out 19 hits in a 17-1 quarterfinal victory over Chatsworth.

And despite the Parrots’ lack of offense, Busby said he was impressed with the Poly batters.

“You could tell they were good hitters because they didn’t take any of my stuff,” Busby said. “They were all swinging.”

Rodrigo Dorame’s single in the second inning and Marlon McKinney’s double in the fourth were the Parrots’ only hits.

McKinney’s hit also led to Poly’s only run when he ripped a high fastball to the left-field fence 340 feet away for a stand-up double with one out.

McKinney moved to third on a passed ball and scored on a wild pitch to tie the score, 1-1.

Banning, which has just two starters batting better than .300, parlayed three hits, two walks and a hit batter into four runs in the sixth.