Numbers Catch Up With Celts in Defeat

This time, one run wasn’t enough for the Crespi High baseball team.

The Celts, who parlayed two runs into two playoff victories in the past week, were defeated by Fountain Valley, 5-1, on Friday in a Southern Section Division I quarterfinal game.

Senior right-hander Steve Schenewerk (14-2), who has signed with Pepperdine, limited Crespi to six hits and struck out seven, including the side in order in the seventh and five of the last six batters.

“I just didn’t have control of my pitches the first couple of innings,” Schenewerk said. “I got stronger as we went along. I knew if I just threw strikes we’d get outs.”

The Celts (21-8), who posted 1-0 victories over Lakewood and Royal, failed in their bid for athird consecutive victory over a league champion. Fountain Valley (22-7), which won the Sunset League, is vying for a third consecutive Division I title.

“His fastball wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before,” said Crespi’s Barry Matthews, who relieved starter Brian Felten (9-2) in the third inning after Fountain Valley built a 3-1 lead. “I thought the team felt we could pull it out.”

Matthews, who has signed with Cal State Northridge, allowed two hits and two runs before ending the inning, then held the Barons hitless the rest of the game.

“We lost. Everybody’s disappointed,” Matthews said. “But we’ve got nothing to hang our heads about. Coach [Scott] Muckey said he was proud of us.”

“We had a great year,” Muckey said. “We had to fight back, all the way from the beginning. Story of our lives, I guess.”

Crespi, which finished third in the Mission League, gave up a run in the first inning when Matt Fox doubled and scored on a single by Kevin Burford.

Felten, a 6-foot-3 junior right-hander who won both previous playoff games, was chased in the third after allowing three hits, including a pair of doubles.

Matthews, who moved from first base to the mound, stabilized matters, but Crespi was unable to mount much of an attack against Schenewerk.

The Celts scored their only run in the third inning when Mike Turner led off with a walk and scored on a double by John Campanella.

Crespi almost got back in the game in the fourth. Andy Campanella, Matthews and Rob Hirsh began the inning with singles to load the bases.

However, the rally ended when Tomy Salazar struck out, Turner forced Campanella at the plate on a grounder to the pitcher and Nick Rita grounded out.

“We had one bad inning,” Muckey said. “That game could have gotten out of hand. We would have liked to have put some pressure on [Schenewerk] and see how that worked.”

In the seventh, Schenewerk struck out Turner, Rita and Chris Crawley, after fanning Salazar to end the sixth.