Orange Lutheran Can’t Get Pitching, Falls Short of Title

LONG BEACH — Orange Lutheran baseball Coach John Malmquist knew he would have to use a committee of pitchers in the Southern Section 1-A championship game Friday at Blair Field.

What he didn’t know was that Montclair Prep would collect 12 hits and get eight walks off the young pitchers in a 12-2 victory Friday night.

“It was no big secret we were going to have to throw a lot of guys,” Malmquist said. “The inexperience was obvious. They just flat outplayed us.”

When right-hander Matt Hendren--the ace of Malmquist’s staff--pitched seven innings in defeating Crossroads in the semifinals, the Lancers were short of experienced pitchers.

Malmquist was pressed into using two pitchers--sophomore James Maddock and junior Mason Effertz--who had spent much of the season on the junior varsity.

It showed.

Junior starter Jason Fox walked the first batter he faced, allowed that runner to score, then had the walls cave in around him for four runs on two hits, a walk and an error.

Maddock did the best of the bunch, allowing only a run and three hits over three innings.

“James did a great job,” Malmquist said. “He put a couple of zeroes up on the board against them.”

But Hendren, the Lancers’ winningest pitcher at 10-4, ran into the heart of a Montclair Prep batting order that posted a .398 team average this season.

Hendren came out of it an inning later--after five runs, three hits and three walks--with Montclair Prep leading, 11-1. Effertz gave up three hits and a run in the final inning.

Meanwhile, Orange Lutheran had difficulty with Montclair Prep’s left-hander Steve Cain, who took a no-hitter into the sixth, and gave up a run on only one hit--Jason Presley’s opposite-field single in the sixth.

Cain shut down an Orange Lutheran squad that was hitting .322 coming into the game. He walked six batters, but pitched his way out of jams in the second and third and allowed only three balls to be hit out of the infield.

“We couldn’t hit the ball off (Cain),” Malmquist said. “He was wild in the strike zone, and it threw us off. We never really hit the ball hard off of us.”