For the Golden Hawks, It’s All Too Familiar

They say they’ll probably get together for a game of golf today. Maybe have lunch, joke around, just hang out. Whatever it takes to ease the images of late Tuesday afternoon.

It won’t be easy. It never is. Visions of stranded baserunners and strikeouts don’t fade away overnight. Nor does the score--Diamond Bar 5, El Dorado 4. Not when it was the same as the year before.

A jinx? That’s what some of the El Dorado players were calling it after the game. What else can you call it, they said, when one team rallies to beat you two years in a row?

Not a jinx. A jinx is when every player comes down with the chicken pox the night before the game or mysteriously loses his left shoe before taking the field.

This is entirely Diamond Bar’s doing. The top-ranked team in the nation showed an overflow crowd at Cal State Fullerton what it has been showing the people behind the rankings all year long. That they’ve got power, speed, pitching . . . and the ability to turn a 4-2, seventh-inning deficit into a ticket to Anaheim Stadium for the championship.

Certainly, in addition to the score, the game featured a fair amount of deja vu . Last year, Shawn Holcomb gave up the winning home run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Diamond Bar’s Jared Janke did the damage on an 0-2 fastball.

Tuesday, Holcomb came into the seventh with a 4-2 lead. Catcher Karl Thompson got a base hit off Holcomb’s first pitch. Janke stepped to the plate and, with a home run, could tie the score.

Both players said they expected the continuation of their showdown. Holcomb fired two consecutive strikes. Janke fouled one off, reminding him of a similar confrontation last summer.

Holcomb and Janke played together on an American Legion team. In one very relaxed game, the opposing team didn’t have enough players, so Holcomb was sent over to pitch. Janke fouled off more than a dozen pitches before reaching first on an error.

Back to Tuesday. Holcomb fired an 1-2 curveball. Janke slammed it down the third-base line for a double. For Holcomb and El Dorado, it was the beginning of the end.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh, no, not again!’ ” Janke said. “I was trying not to think about it, but the crowd, the cheering . . . it was tough.”

El Dorado knows the feeling. But the Golden Hawks weren’t outmatched. It might have been a blowout, but it wasn’t. There should be no long faces on the golf course today, and here’s why:

Holcomb.

How much more can one guy do? He was stunning throughout the playoffs, at the plate and on the mound. Tuesday, the senior’s sacrifice fly in the first inning gave El Dorado a 1-0 lead. He also singled twice and had an RBI triple in the sixth to tie the score, 2-2.

True, his pitching fell apart toward the end. But Holcomb also played third base most of the year and, as a junior, had such a horrible outing in his first varsity practice, he came home to find his stepfather sitting on the living room couch with a paper bag over his head.

Monday, Holcomb learned he had been drafted by the Angels in the fourth round--far higher than envisioned.

From the biggest day of his life to the biggest game of his life? Not too much distraction there. But on to reason No. 2.

Overall team improvement.

This is probably something El Dorado Coach Steve Gullotti should think about while he gulps down all that Pepto-Bismol during the next few days. A year ago, the Golden Hawks were young and fundamentally unsound, so much so that they had to spend about 45 minutes each practice fielding grounders. Pop-fly communication? Gullotti went over it again and again. This year, it showed.

The semifinals.

As in El Dorado made it to the semifinals this year but last year was eliminated in the second round. At this rate, the Golden Hawks should make it to the finals next year. Of course, jinx or no jinx, Diamond Bar will probably be there waiting for them.

The fans.

Sure, El Dorado has Wild Bill and Hawk Man, the guy in the Batman disguise, to lead their cheers and to toss cans of soda pop to their thirsty followers. But they also apparently have people who regularly support the team even though they sometimes don’t seem to have the faintest idea of what’s going on.

“Oh my God,” yelled one girl as Diamond Bar loaded the bases in the seventh inning. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I think we have to win.”

They didn’t. But they weren’t losers either.