HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL / CITY CHAMPIONSHIPS : San Pedro Ends Valley’s 20-Year Hold on Title

San Pedro High became the first baseball team from outside the San Fernando Valley since 1972 to win the City Section large-school division championship with a 6-3 victory over Poly Wednesday night before 7,683 at Dodger Stadium.

It is the first title for San Pedro (22-4), which lost in its only other appearance in the final, in 1962. Venice, which beat Sylmar in 1972, was the last non-Valley team to win the title.

The Pirates, trailing 1-0 in the second inning, scored runs in four innings to take a 6-1 lead. Poly rallied in the seventh on Eric Diaz’s two-out double, but reliever Jamey Smith struck out Orlando Chavarria with runners on first and third to preserve the victory.

Larry Cannon (8-1) limited Poly to five hits through six innings before giving way to Smith.

Dan O’Neil, who had three hits, doubled home Miguel Medina and Mark Miller in the second to give San Pedro a 2-1 lead.

Top-seeded Poly (21-5) committed five errors, one with two out in the third inning, enabling the Pirates to increase their lead to 3-1. Pitcher Allen Allegria and third baseman Sergio Garcia collided trying to catch a pop up and Jose Duarte scored from third.

“I felt great, but they got a couple--I won’t say lucky--hits that just fell,” Allegria said.

San Pedro scored twice in the fourth and two more Poly errors contributed to the Pirates’ final run in the sixth.

Fremont 8, Crenshaw 6--It had been 21 seasons since Fremont reached the City championship game before Wednesday night’s 3-A Division final.

Pathfinder assistant coach Taja Rodisha kept track of each passing season. Rodisha was a center fielder on the 1971 team that lost to Monroe in the championship game.

Rodisha’s patience was rewarded when Fremont defeated Crenshaw to win a record eighth title and its first since 1963. The Pathfinders won six City championships between 1939 and 1948, including three in a row from 1946-48.

“It’s been unreal, this is one of my most heartfelt moments,” said Rodisha, who coaches the football team and is in his 13th season as an assistant with the baseball team.

“I always tell these kids the reason I came back to Fremont was to win the City title that I let get away when I was here. For me to win this championship was the ultimate. Once you’re the champ, nobody can take that away.”

Early in the game, it looked as if a championship might elude Rodisha again. Crenshaw (17-7) opened the game with consecutive singles and scored twice in the first.

The Cougars scored again in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead. Meanwhile, Fremont, which scored 33 runs in its four playoff victories, sent the minimum nine batters to the plate in the first three innings.

“It was no big deal,” Fremont Coach Marshall Gelb said. “We knew that two runs wasn’t going to beat us. We needed the first run. We kept saying that if we got that first run, we’d be rolling.”

After starting pitcher Cesar Lopez (1-1) doubled home James Lofton and Gerardo Reyes with two out in the fourth, Fremont (18-7) scored twice more to take a 4-3 lead and never trailed again.

Fremont placed fifth in the Southeastern Conference, but won seven of its last eight games.

“We won the playoff games to get here and I knew we were good enough, but at the beginning of the season, I didn’t thing we had a chance,” said Lofton, who reached base three times and had his 25th stolen base of the season. “We came up playing the second half of the season and this is what it added up to.”

Fremont’s Jorge Soto had two hits and drove in two runs and Ulises Fernandez, the winning pitcher in the Pathfinders’ 14-1 semifinal victory over Washington, earned the save.