Blooper Gave Rojas the Last Laugh : Baseball: San Fernando’s senior second baseman ‘will take’ his game-winning single to shallow right-center in the City Section 4-A Division final.

Vin Scully, whose voice long has echoed through the corridors of the site in which David Rojas had his game-winning hit, would have no trouble describing the ball’s trajectory to listeners.

Among long-running favorites that Scully might use to characterize Rojas’ looping single Friday night at Dodger Stadium:

Blooper . . . Texas Leaguer . . . Dying quail . . . Shank shot . . . Dunker.

Take your pick, but Rojas humbly submits that the term game-winning should precede the word single.

“I’ll take it,” said Rojas, a senior second baseman who bats right-handed. “Call it whatever you want. I’ll take it.”

You bet he will, especially considering that there was an excruciating moment when Rojas was not sure if he had won the game or merely made an out.

With two out in the bottom of the seventh inning, Rojas’ clutch single drove in Abel Barajas from third with the winning run to give San Fernando High a 3-2 victory over Banning in the City Section 4-A Division baseball final.

The ball, Rojas said, hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. Would the second baseman get there in time? Would the center fielder? Would Rojas remember to run to first base?

“When I first hit it, I thought it might fall,” Rojas said. “But when I started going to first, I saw that the second baseman had his hand up in the air like he was going to catch it.

“That was the longest run to first base ever. It took a looong time.”

When the ball fell in short right-center, about 10 feet in front of center fielder Lamont Dobbins, San Fernando had won the first baseball title in its 96-year existence.

And Rojas was an instant hero.

He was buried under a pile of teammates near first base. He was glad-handed and back-slapped during the bus ride to San Fernando. When the team bus returned to school, dozens of fans were there to greet the team, pouring even more adulation upon Rojas and crew.

“It was like we were soldiers coming back from Operation Desert Storm,” Coach Steve Marden said. “They had banners and everything. It was quite a moment.”

Rojas, who received the Les Haserot Award for being the top performer in the playoffs, said he never imagined that he would deliver in such a throat-tightening situation. While many high school players might fantasize about what it would be like to produce the game-winning hit under such circumstances, Rojas said he did not consider the possibility.

“I never thought about it,” said Rojas, who entered the game batting .378, the third-highest mark on the team. “I wasn’t nervous. I was just concentrating on hitting the ball.”

That was problem enough.

On the mound for Banning was senior right-hander Mike Busby, who entered the game with one out in the sixth inning sporting an 11-0 record and an earned-run average of 0.59. Before facing Rojas, Busby (6-foot-4, 220 pounds) had allowed exactly two hits in 15 1/3 playoff innings.

With one out in the seventh and Barajas at third, Ethan Rodriguez grounded to second for the second out, setting the stage for Rojas vs. Busby. In three previous at-bats, all against starter Mark Chavez, Rojas had walked, popped up and grounded out.

“His first pitch was high and I swung anyway,” Rojas said. “I just told myself to calm down. He jammed me on the second pitch, but I got enough of it.”

After the Tigers had hovered near the .500 mark for much of the season, Art Tarin and Rojas took the emotional reins and steered the team toward the playoffs. Rojas also led by example.

He contributed a key two-run single in the second inning as San Fernando upset third-seeded University, 6-2, in the first round, then added a single, double and a triple in a 7-3 quarterfinal victory over Birmingham. In addition, Rojas singled and doubled as the Tigers hammered second-seeded Sylmar, 10-2, in the semifinals last Tuesday.

The upset of top-seeded Banning capped an improbable season for the Tigers, who finished third in North Valley League play. Yet after defeating the second- and third-seeded teams, San Fernando (17-10) was no longer in awe of anyone.

“We knew we could hold our own,” Rojas said. “We didn’t go in feeling we’d have to be lucky to win.”

Lucky, or words to that effect, was how Busby described Rojas’ hit.

“I don’t consider it a hit,” Busby said afterward. “But they won the game.”

That, of course, is the bottom line.