PRIDE OF THE COAST BASEBALL TOURNAMENT : Corona del Mar Turns Up an Ace to Beat Laguna Hills

Corona del Mar Coach Joe Koh found another arm worth keeping Monday.

His latest discovery is sophomore Garrett Nuzum. He pitched a four-hit shutout to lead the Sea Kings to a 10-0 victory over Laguna Hills in the second round of the Pride of the Coast baseball tournament at Corona del Mar High.

“Coming into the tournament, we wanted to get a look at (Nuzum) because he had thrown only six innings prior to this,” Koh said. “We have a lot of good arms, but we’ve not had the number of games needed to try them all out.”

Nuzum (1-0), who struck out three and walked one, watched leadoff batter Jay Johnson reach on an error, but the left-hander then retired 10 consecutive batters.

In the meantime, Corona del Mar had scored an unearned run in the first, three in the third and two in the fourth.

“We came out with a couple runs and that made it easier,” Nuzum said. “And it was one of the better defensive games we’ve had.”

Laguna Hills (10-4) has a young lineup of two freshmen, two sophomores and three juniors and that inexperience showed in the form of four errors and five unearned runs.

Starter Tony Milo (5-3) went four innings, giving up three earned runs.

“(Milo) wasn’t helped out much by some of the errors,” Coach Pete Tereschuk said. “When you play a good team like this, you have to make all the routine plays.”

The Sea Kings (9-4-1) were led on offense by Chris Carey, who was three for four with two RBIs and a run scored. Chad Johnson was two for four with two runs scored.

Corona del Mar plays host to Century at 11 a.m. in one semifinal. Laguna Hills is at Costa Mesa at 11 a.m.

In other quarterfinal-round games:

Century 5, Costa Mesa 2 (9)--Richard Cevallos hit a home run during a three-run ninth for visiting Century. Century scored two runs in the first but Costa Mesa rallied for runs in the third and sixth.

Santa Margarita 9, Estancia 3--Michael Penney hit two-run homer in the third and a three-run homer in the fourth to give him six this season.

Santa Margarita (9-6) advanced to today’s semifinal against host Newport Harbor at 11 a.m.

Newport Harbor 6, Orange Lutheran 5--Mike Freeman had two hits and Dan Pulido had a two-run double in the first for Newport Harbor (6-8). Orange Lutheran scored once in the seventh to get close.

In consolation games:

Los Amigos 4, Brethren Christian 2--Greg Madrid pitched an eight-hitter with four strikeouts for Los Amigos (3-10), which scored twice in the seventh on a pair of bases-loaded walks. Los Amigos plays Santa Monica at Newport Harbor at 2 p.m.

Santa Monica 2, Bolsa Grande 0--Shawn Scholer hit a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth for Santa Monica (7-5-1).

El Modena 7, Magnolia 6--Greg Hanson scored the winning run from second base on a one-out double-play attempt in the bottom of the sixth inning for El Modena (5-7). Mike Brown was one for two with two runs batted in to lead El Modena.