Off the Mound, Wolf Gives Spiritual Lift : High school baseball: El Camino Real ace inspires mates to 14-9 victory over Quartz Hill, berth in title game.

The El Camino Real High baseball team would have liked to have Randy Wolf pitching on Tuesday. But, under the circumstances, the Conquistadores were ecstatic just to have Wolf watching.

Wolf, whose father, James, died of a heart attack on Sunday, was wearing street clothes in the El Camino Real High dugout during the Conquistadores’ 14-9 victory against Quartz Hill in the final game of pool play in the Thousand Oaks tournament.

“He made a big difference to me, just him being here for everyone to see he was all right,” senior Clint Marcus said.

Wolf hopes to make more of a difference today. He said he will play for the Conquistadores (7-2) in the championship game at 2 p.m. against Thousand Oaks (9-2).

El Camino Real was 2-1 in pool play, tying with Newbury Park and Harvard-Westlake. The Conquistadores advanced because they scored more runs than either of the other two teams.

Both El Camino Real and Quartz Hill were able to score plenty on Tuesday against second-line pitching. Each team was playing its third game in fewer than 30 hours.

Marcus started for El Camino Real and Darrell Hussman for the Rebels (6-5). Neither had pitched this season.

Hussman (0-1) was in trouble from the start. He gave up nine runs in 2 1/3 innings. He was ejected from the game for arguing balls and strikes in the third, yielding to Javier Salinas, who gave up three more runs and could not get out of the inning.

El Camino Real jumped to a 12-1 lead after three innings. Most of the damage was done by shortstop Matt Tays, who drove in seven runs in his first three at-bats. He finished the game with five hits, including a triple and two doubles.

But Marcus (1-0), who was effective for the first four innings, fell apart in the fifth. Billy Burnette relieved and could only record one out. The Rebels pulled to within 12-9, when El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio finally had to use Tony Kyber to get out of the inning and finish the game. Kyber pitched seven innings Monday.

Paul Leth had two doubles and Albert Miller had two singles to lead Quartz Hill. Justin Martin, Craig Carlton, Jason Gibbs and Gavin Bible each had two hits for the Conquistadores.