Sepulveda Routs West to Edge Closer to Area Playoffs

Sepulveda, a team composed of players from a Southern Section 1-A Division school, is supposed to be taking its lumps during its inaugural season of American Legion baseball.

Instead, Sepulveda has been dishing out the beatings, including a pair at the District 20 playoffs at Birmingham High this week.

Sepulveda cruised to a 10-3 win Thursday over Woodland Hills West, improving its record to 20-5 and putting it within one win of an automatic berth in the Area 6 playoffs next week. Sepulveda draws its players from Montclair Prep, which has won the past two Southern Section 1-A titles.

“Our kids get laughed at because they play 1-A baseball,” Coach P.C. Shaw said. “Well, it’s time for the Valley to realize that we can play with the 3-A, 4-A, and 5-A schools.”

One reason lies within the Sepulveda pitching staff, which has allowed only 12 hits and four earned runs in 18 playoff innings. Kevin Grant (3-2) limited Woodland Hills to six hits and two earned runs.

“He throws as hard as anybody we’ve faced,” Woodland Hills Coach Don Hornback said. “We just never could get anything going.”

Sepulveda, meanwhile, had no trouble with its offense. It took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Brad Fullmer’s ground out that scored Justin Bass, who had walked and advanced to third on Andy Shaw’s double.

Woodland Hills answered with a run in its half of the first on Greg Lederman’s single. Sepulveda came back in the third with a run-scoring single by Fullmer and a run-scoring double by Chris Portugal to take a 3-1 lead. Portugal, who had two hits, added a solo home run in the fifth that increased Sepulveda’s lead to 4-1. Sepulveda put the game out of reach in the sixth on a two-run single by Fullmer that made the score, 6-1. Fullmer drove in four runs.

Sepulveda added three runs in the seventh on a run-scoring single by Justin Paperny and a two-run double by Shaw. Bass, Shaw, Fullmer, and Portugal each had two hits for Sepulveda, which will meet Glendale (20-5) today at 4 p.m. at Birmingham High in a matchup of the tournament’s only unbeaten teams.

Woodland Hills West 8, San Fernando 6 (11 innings)--Justin Stark (three for five) hit a two-run home run, his fifth, with one out in the bottom of the 11th, to keep Woodland Hills (18-8) alive.

Stark’s blast capped a victory in which Woodland Hills, a wild-card entrant, twice rallied from deficits. Potential Woodland Hills winning runs were thrown out at the plate to end the eighth and ninth innings.

Aaron Weiss, Greg Lederman, and Dan Cey each had three hits for Woodland Hills. Mike McLean and Cey each drove in two runs. Robert Garcia had three hits and Ortega had two hits and three RBIs for San Fernando (17-9).

Glendale 8, Encino-Crespi 7 (10 innings)--Encino-Crespi (19-6) rallied from a 7-1 deficit at Pierce College but fell when Glendale’s Brenden Barrett squeezed home the winning run with one out in the 10th. Jeff Suppan had four hits and drove in four runs for Encino-Crespi (19-6). Jon Strauss had three hits for Glendale (20-5).