THE PREPS : BASEBALL / GARDEN GROVE LEAGUE ROUNDUP : La Quinta’s Jones Might Not Be Perfect, but He Wins

Craig Jones of La Quinta was a pitch away from perfection Friday when he was betrayed by the very pitch that put him in that position.

Jones lost his bid for a perfect game when he hit a batter with a fastball with two outs in the seventh. He then allowed consecutive singles. But La Quinta wound up beating Pacifica, 6-0, in a Garden Grove League baseball game at La Quinta.

“At the end of the fourth,” Jones said, “I noticed that I hadn’t been working out of the stretch.”

For much of the afternoon it looked as if the senior right-hander wouldn’t allow a base runner. Jones, spotting his fastball well and mixing in a breaking pitch here and there, rolled through six innings, during which only a few pitches were hit hard.

Corey Fox made a nice play charging a slow roller at third for the first out of the seventh. Jones then retired the next batter on a grounder to second baseman C.J. Livernois.

But up came Jeff Barndollar, who came into the game hitting .526. Jones got ahead in the count a ball and two strikes, but Barndollar turned stubborn, fouling off three consecutive pitches.

Jones, who had been working on the outside half of the plate, came inside and hit Barndollar in the upper back.

“I just wanted to hit my spots,” Jones said. “The ball just tailed up and in.”

John Fenoglio, a sophomore, followed with a line-drive single up the middle and Alex Murray then singled to left. The game ended when Kasey Chapman grounded to Livernois to end the game.

Jones (5-0) had six strikeouts, 11 ground outs and four fly outs for fifth-ranked La Quinta (14-2-1, 6-0 in league).

He has 31 strikeouts and nine walks in 36 2/3 innings. The shutout lowered his earned-run average to 1.91.

Pacifica is 7-6, 3-2.

“(Jones) pitched a big game for us in a key situation,” La Quinta Coach Dave Demarest said. “Pacifica is really starting to come on strong.”

Jon Gibson had an RBI double and another run scored on a error in the second for La Quinta. The Aztecs added three more on five hits in the fifth. Livernois had an RBI single, Fox had an RBI double and another run scored on a wild pitch.

Jhamol Dawkins added an RBI single in the sixth for La Quinta.

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In another Garden Grove League game:

Bolsa Grande 7, Los Amigos 0--Dan Hendrix was two for four with two runs batted in and Joey Francisco was two for four with one RBI and two stolen bases for Bolsa Grande (2-9, 1-4), which ended a seven-game losing streak. Los Amigos is 2-10, 1-4.