Bases-Loaded Walk in 10th Gives Simi Valley Title

The motivation was simple. Simi Valley High did not travel about 3,000 miles to settle for second in the Colonial baseball tournament.

And Simi Valley’s determination showed in the championship game Saturday when the Pioneers edged Boone High of Orlando, 1-0, in 10 innings.

Bill Treadway, pitching on one day’s rest, combined with Trevor Leppard to limit Boone to one hit. A bases-loaded walk to Britten Pond with none out in the bottom of the 10th forced home Kevin Nykoluk with the only run and gave Simi Valley (12-5) its second Colonial title. It was only the second run given up by Boone (23-4) in 58 innings.

Nykoluk had doubled to left to lead off the inning, the third of only four hits in the game. Matt Brown, Boone’s third pitcher, walked Aaron Fischer intentionally, and Aaron Whitley singled to load the bases.

Brown then delivered four high fastballs to Pond.

Simi Valley also won the Colonial championship in 1986, behind the pitching of Scott Radinsky, now with the Chicago White Sox. This time, the opportunity arose for two junior right-handers to step into the spotlight.

Treadway, who said his fastball had little on it and that his breaking ball curved only “occasionally,” went a long way on gutsiness and adrenaline against Boone, ranked No. 4 in Florida.

Pitching less than 48 hours after one-hitting Lakeland (N.Y.) in the semifinals, Treadway did not give up a hit in six innings. Leppard took over from there, pitching four scoreless innings to pick up his third victory of the tournament.

Leppard, who saved the Pioneers on Tuesday with a superb six-inning, one-hit outing against Winter Park, Fla., improved to 6-1 and was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Saturday, he struck out five and gave up only a double by Amilka Delgado to lead off the ninth. “This is the greatest feeling ever,” Leppard said. “I just wanted to throw strikes and keep it close until our hitting could take over. This can give us a lot of momentum. We didn’t come all this way to lose.”

Simi Valley is 15-2 in its four trips to the tournament, and one of those losses was a forfeit. “We don’t come all the way across the country to embarrass ourselves,” Coach Mike Scyphers said. “We want to show people in the East what kind of baseball is played on the West Coast. This is a great win for us.”