Calabasas Simply Reloads, Unloads on Newbury Park

Much of the cast is new for the Calabasas High baseball team, but the show goes on.

The Coyotes downed Newbury Park, 4-0, on Tuesday in a Blue Division semifinal at the Birmingham tournament. Calabasas plays Simi Valley today at 3 in the division final.

Calabasas is 62-10-2 in the last three seasons and has established itself as one of the region’s top programs. Four Coyotes returned from last year’s team, which went 19-3-2 and won the Frontier League title.

“In the past years we’ve had stars at a lot of positions,” Coyote catcher Josh Goldfield said. “This season not everybody’s in the limelight but everyone’s pulled through.”

The victory was a welcome return to normalcy for the Coyotes (9-2), who played without four starters Monday in a tournament victory over Channel Islands.

The players, whom Calabasas Coach Rick Nathanson declined to identify, pelted the house of a former Calabasas coach with eggs on Saturday.

Nathanson said the players confessed to the prank and were suspended for Monday’s game. Tuesday, they returned to the lineup, and after defeating the Panthers, returned to the house for a cleanup effort.

Coyote right-hander Tom Lookabill (2-0) pitched a five-hitter, striking out two and walking one. Goldfield drove in Calabasas’ first two runs with a first-inning single.

Lookabill, a junior making his second start, normally is a long reliever. But with the Coyotes playing the fifth of seven games in six days, he was thrust into a starting role and used accuracy, not velocity, to blank the Panthers.

“He throws slower than all the other guys on the staff but he hits his spots every time,” Goldfield said.

“He’s always around the plate and our defense backs him up.”

Neither team committed an error and Lookabill induced 12 ground balls and six fly balls. He retired the side in order four times.

“You saw vintage Lookabill today,” Nathanson said. “He forces the other team to hit the ball and our defense to stay in the game mentally.”

Newbury Park (7-6) went with an even more inexperienced starter, sophomore Tyler Johnson.

Johnson, promoted from the junior varsity for the tournament, allowed two runs, both earned, and five hits in four innings.

He struck out five, walked two and hit a batter.

Johnson was relieved by senior right-hander Cody Biggerstaff, who allowed three hits and two earned runs while striking out one and walking two in two innings.

Ricky Stockton and Brian Fatur each had two hits for the Coyotes.

Fatur hit his sixth double and pushed his streak of consecutive games with a hit to 22, six shy of the team record set by Josh Morton during the 1992-93 seasons.

Nathanson said if Fatur breaks Morton’s record, his streak would be the third longest in California high school history.

Fatur is batting .578 with four home runs, 13 runs batted in and 11 stolen bases. Twelve of his hits have been for extra bases.

Simi Valley 11, Culver City 7--Andy Gerber hit an eighth-inning grand slam for the Pioneers at Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks.

Todd Scherwin added two hits and two RBIs for the Pioneers (6-4).