BASEBALL AMERICAN LEGION AREA 6 PLAYOFFS : Conejo Edges Woodland Hills West, 3-2

The heck with the rest.

In an American Legion tournament filled with surprise endings, big innings and heroics aplenty, Conejo and Woodland Hills West saved the best for Sunday.

That was just the way Conejo Coach Craig Sturges wanted it.

“I wanted to beat the best,” said Sturges as he pointed across the infield moments after the game. “They’re the best.”

Sturges can now shift his statement to past tense. Conejo edged the defending state champion, 3-2, in an Area 6 tournament final at Moorpark College that was, well, tense.

With a run in the ninth inning, Conejo (38-4) earned its first berth in the six-team, double-elimination state tournament, which begins Saturday in Yountville, Calif. Conejo is expected to face Escondido in the first round of the tournament, which concludes Aug. 7.

With the score 2-2 in the top of the ninth, Conejo’s Jim Chergey lined a one-out triple into the gap in right-center off West starter Jeff Johnson. Right-hander Sean Boldt, who started in center field, relieved Johnson and Conejo countered with pinch-hitter Jeff Olin.

In Saturday’s 6-5 defeat of West, Olin had two of Conejo’s four hits and added a sacrifice fly off the hard-throwing Boldt, who was looking for a strikeout. Sturges kept his advisory message to Olin short and sweet: “It’s time to hit.”

“It’s (Boldt’s) job to get him out and (Olin’s) job to get a hit,” Sturges said. “There’s going to be a winner, and there’s going to be a loser.”

Olin, who along with Chergey are the lone players on the roster with eligibility remaining next season at Thousand Oaks High, wanted no part of the latter.

“I was trying, if not to get a hit, just to get a fly ball out there deep enough for Chergey to score,” Olin said. “At the least, I had to come through with a fly ball.”

In this case, least worked just fine. Olin’s fly ball to left was deep enough to drive in Chergey for a 3-2 lead. Yet West, which won the Legion World Series in 1989 and came within one game of returning to the Series last summer, is tournament-tested tough and refused to make it easy.

Facing reliever Jeff Naster in the bottom of the ninth, Justin Balser reached base on shortstop Bryan Corey’s fielding error, the only error in the game. Balser was then sacrificed to second by Evan Howland.

Naster, however, needed just two more pitches to end the game. He retired Dan Cey on a grounder to second, which moved Balser to third, and recorded the final out and a save when Boldt grounded softly to second.

Conejo right-hander Tony Siegel (7-2) allowed two runs on four hits over eight innings, struck out seven and walked eight. At game’s end, he was found looking a little faint in the dugout, his right elbow buried in an ice chest and a soft drink in his hand.

“It’s been a long time since I went this far,” said Siegel, who was used sparingly as a senior last spring at Thousand Oaks. “I’m not used to it.”

Siegel was nearly upstaged by a player who played even less--as in not at all. Johnson didn’t play baseball last season at El Camino Real and will be a fifth-year senior in the fall, making him ineligible to compete.

But Johnson (0-1) held Conejo--which entered the tournament averaging nine runs a game--to no runs on three hits over the first four innings, despite a self-inflicted injury.

Johnson accidentally stepped on his own big toe in the early innings, ripping open his left shoe and drawing blood. The right-hander, nonetheless, allowed three runs on eight hits, struck out four and walked two in 8 1/3 innings.

Trailing, 1-0, Conejo scored in the fifth when Chergey singled with one out, stole second and scored on a single by Ryan Kritscher. West (25-11) moved ahead, 2-1, in the seventh when Cey drove in Kent Cote on a sacrifice fly to right, with Cote eluding the sweep tag of catcher Brian Sturges with a headlong dive.

Kritscher, the lead-off batter who had two hits and stole three bases, used his speed to again tie the score in the eighth. Kritscher reached first on an infield chopper to third to open the inning and stole second.

Johnson walked Brent Christenson, and one out later walked Adam West to load the bases. Sturges drove in Kritscher with a sacrifice fly to center for a 2-2 tie.

Conejo finished the double-elimination tournament with a record of 4-0. Beyond the state tournament lies the regionals, and beyond that the Legion World Series.

“They look as formidable as any of the teams I’ve seen up there (in Yountville) the last two years,” said West Coach Don Hornback, who after the game spent a few minutes telling the Conejo players exactly that. “What it boils down to is this: for a team to go that far, they need a whole lot of talent, a whole lot of of character and a whole lot of luck.”

For Conejo, perhaps the best is yet to come.