Poly Staves Off Sylmar, Inches Closer to Title

When Sylmar and Poly highs met on the baseball field in their East Valley League finale last year, the teams were slugging it out for first place--and both succeeded.

A year later, the defending league co-champions remain fierce opponents, although the Spartans have fallen out of the race for the league championship.

On Tuesday, Poly (16-4, 13-2 in league play) moved a step closer to winning the league title with an 8-4 victory over the host Spartans. With two games remaining, the Parrots remain one game ahead of Grant (14-6, 12-3).

“I don’t care who you talk to . . . there’s no two better teams playing each other on any given day than right here,” Poly Coach Jerry Cord said.

The rivalry between the schools dates to at least the 1970s, and Cord, in his 17th season at Poly, has been around for most of the games.

“Every single year, it’s never over until it’s over,” Cord said.

Left-hander Allen Alegria held the Spartans to two hits by Jose Villafana through the first five innings as the Parrots took a 4-0 lead.

But Sylmar (10-12, 8-7), which has lost two games in as many days, showed some fight in the sixth.

Juan Flores, the Spartans’ No. 9 batter, led off the inning by ripping an 0-and-2 pitch 320 feet down the left-field line and over a 25-foot fence for Sylmar’s first home run of the season.

After Jimmy Lemos followed with a double to left-center, Cord began to pace.

Alegria (8-2), primarily a knuckleball pitcher, struck out Andrew Camarillo for the first out, but Cord pulled Alegria in favor of relief ace Reynaldo Gutierrez.

The Spartans added another run in the inning on a pair of throwing errors by shortstop Frankie Medina to close to within 4-2.

Poly answered with four runs in the seventh, bunching a walk and four consecutive hits off Villafana (4-4), who returned to the mound last week after a five-week, injury layoff. It was his third appearance in six days and his second loss in two.

Although Villafana gave up nine hits and six earned runs, Cord was impressed with his performance.

“I wouldn’t want to see this team in the playoffs. I wouldn’t want to be a first-place team playing (Sylmar)--not with Villafana out there,” Cord said. “Give that guy another week and a half and he’ll be tough.”