These Friends Running in a Pack Again : Baseball: Drizos is doing fine at Nevada, where he has been reunited with Saddleback College teammate Garcia.

Justin Drizos and Neil Garcia were good friends when they played baseball for Saddleback College for two seasons.

*

They appeared to be going their separate ways last fall, however. Garcia had signed with Nevada and Drizos was headed to Wyoming.

Drizos had hoped it would be different. “I wanted to go to Reno to start with, but they took Neil and passed on me,” Drizos said. “I think they thought they had their first baseman at the time and that was clearly my position.”

Then some things started to happen. When Drizos arrived in Laramie, he learned he was missing a half-unit needed to transfer to a four-year school, and would have to pick it up at a community college. He did that, but the scholarship help he had been expecting wasn’t available there. He also spent enough time at Wyoming’s fall practices to know that he wasn’t sold on the program. And then there was the brutal winter weather. While the Californian shivered in the cold, he stewed emotionally. “It was so cold you couldn’t go outside very much and I got cabin fever,” Drizos said.

After a few phone calls to his old buddy Garcia, Drizos was asking the Nevada coaches if they could somehow find a spot for him with the Wolf Pack. They did, and they’ve been delighted with that decision all season.

Today Drizos, who played at Woodbridge, is one of the hottest hitters on the team. He’s batting .371 with four home runs and 36 runs batted in. Drizos, 6 feet 3 and 200 pounds, also is playing superbly at first base. And Nevada (36-10) is ranked 14th in the nation, in the running for the Big West Conference championship and setting its sights on the NCAA playoffs. Cal State Fullerton regained first place in the Big West with its three-game sweep of New Mexico State. Nevada and Long Beach State are tied for second in the conference at 13-5 behind the Titans (15-5).

Garcia, who played for Foothill, also has been a big part of that success, even though he was out several weeks with a torn muscle in his back.

Drizos ranks fifth in the conference in hitting, and he has been the key figure since Garcia was injured. Through a 12-game stretch, Drizos had 27 hits in 49 at bats. He hit safely in 14 of the team’s last 16 games before Nevada opened a three-game series Friday at Santa Barbara.

“We liked Justin when he was at the junior college, but we were limited in scholarship money at that point,” Nevada Coach Gary Powers said. “You can’t recruit everybody, and we felt one of the returning players could move into the first base position. We knew we had a need there, though. Then we had some scholarship money open up in the summer when two of our players who had been injured decided not to return. When Justin expressed an interest, it worked out fine.”

That brought Drizos and Garcia together again.

And Powers couldn’t wait to get them back in the batting order at the same time. Garcia returned to the lineup as a designated hitter in the May 8 doubleheader and had four hits in eight trips to the plate as Nevada took two games against San Jose State after a loss May 7. Drizos had two doubles and a homer in the doubleheader to go with Garcia’s four hits.

Garcia’s .414 batting average is the best in the Big West, 10 points ahead of second-place Jeff Ferguson of Cal State Fullerton.

“We need Neil in the lineup to be the team we’re really capable of being,” Powers said. “He’s a guy you want up there with runners on base. And Justin has really been consistent lately. He got off to a slow start since he didn’t play in the fall and he had to get his timing back.”

Drizos particularly was pleased that he had a good showing in a homecoming of sorts when Nevada played at Fullerton two weeks ago. Drizos’ two hits and two runs batted in helped Nevada win the opener, 5-2. He came back with two more hits and two RBIs in the 7-2 second-game victory. Drizos also managed one of only three hits given up by Fullerton’s Dan Ricabal in the series finale the Titans won, 8-0.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself for that series,” Drizos said. “I had 10 people there, either family members or close friends, so I really wanted to do well.”

Drizos says a couple of changes have helped his hitting.

“Coach Powers had me open my stance and back off the plate a little because I was getting jammed a lot on the inside pitches,” Drizos said. “This way I have more time to turn on the inside pitch and I was able to hit to all fields better.

“Earlier in the season, I was hitting in the low .300s, but I was striking out a lot. I was letting too many of the corner pitches go. From that standpoint, I went back to my Saddleback days. When I thought a pitch was close, I went for it. I had been walking a lot, but I was being too selective.”

Powers is as pleased about Drizos’ play in the field as he is with his hitting. “Sometimes what gets overlooked about Justin is that he’s a tremendous defensive first baseman,” he said. “He’s made plays all year that have really helped us. That makes him even more valuable to us.”

Drizos and Garcia are roommates, and Drizos says that being back around Garcia has helped him become more focused. “Neil eats and sleeps baseball,” Drizos said. “He’s always going 100%, and, frankly, I know I can slip below that at times. We talk baseball all the time and that helps me stay in the right frame of mind.”

Drizos says that might have been the knock on him from some college recruiters.

“I’ve been told that some people thought I lacked desire,” Drizos said. “I guess I do look relaxed in the field, but defense always has come easy to me. I don’t know anything else I can do, other than keep my uniform a little dirtier.”

At this stage, he feels he has proved himself to anyone who might have doubted his chances of being successful in Division I.

“I feel the Big West has some of the best pitchers in the nation,” he said, “and everything became easier for me once I saw that I could hit this pitching.”