Kennedy Continues Impressive Tear, Rips Apart Sylmar, 17-4

Carlos Velazco has had better days--to say the least. Wednesday, he would just as soon forget.

Kennedy High sent 47 batters to the plate and scored a 17-4 victory over Sylmar in a City Section 4-A Division quarterfinal baseball game.

The Golden Cougars (16-10), who have won 10 of their last 11 games, parlayed 15 hits, 10 walks and two hit batters into a runaway victory. Kennedy, which finished second in the North Valley League, scored in each inning but the seventh and never let Sylmar into the game.

“We’ve been playing like this since we started playing league,” Kennedy Coach Manny Alvarado said. “We’ve been on a tear for a while.”

Kennedy will face El Camino Real in a semifinal game Friday at a neutral site to be determined.

Velazco (11-3), Sylmar’s ace right-hander who had given up just 10 earned runs in the regular season, matched that total in 3 2/3 innings against Kennedy.

“He’s a pretty smart pitcher,” Alvarado said. “He won’t throw a strike unless he has to. Today we made him throw in the strike zone, which I guess he isn’t accustomed to doing.”

Kennedy’s Richard Prieto hit a three-run double in the second and George Kassis hit a three-run double in the fourth to fuel a 10-2 lead. Kassis’ base-clearing liner down the left-field foul line with two out in the fourth chased Velazco, who said he had trouble figuring out the umpire’s strike zone.

“If you throw down the middle, sooner or later . . . ,” said Velazco, who is 22-4 in two seasons. “I was falling behind on every other hitter. You just can’t do that when the game is on line. That’s what I did and this is the result.”

Velazco allowed nine hits, walked five and hit a batter before being relieved by his younger brother Rafael in the fourth. Rafael Velazco didn’t last long however, facing five batters and retiring only one. Mario Cervantes relieved with bases loaded and none out in the fifth and promptly gave up a two-run single by David Soto, who went three for four with three runs batted in. Prieto hit a two-run triple in the sixth to extend the lead to 15-4.

Kennedy’s Brad Cooperman (9-4) allowed nine hits, walked three and picked up his second playoff victory.

Art Diaz, who went four for four with two RBIs, hit a run-scoring double in the third for the Spartans’ first run. Carlos Velazco followed with a single to drive in Diaz to cut the lead to 6-2. Sylmar added two runs in the fifth to make it 13-4, but it was too little, too late for the Spartans, who lost three of their last four games after posting a 20-game win streak.