Santa Margarita Gets a Fundamental Victory

Conventional wisdom says you can no longer use the sacrifice bunt with the aluminum bat because the ball comes off the bat too hard to be effective.

But the bunt is the key reason why Santa Margarita remained undefeated in Sea View League play. Three successful sacrifice plays set up all the runs the Eagles scored in their 5-1 victory over host El Toro Wednesday. It was the 10th consecutive win for Santa Margarita (13-2, 4-0).

“Bunting is something we work on every day,” Eagle Coach Tip Lefebvre said. “We needed to play little ball because of all the winds, and the fact we really didn’t play that well. But we got a win, and I’ll take it.”

Eagle starter Brad Sergeant (4-1) went six innings. Reliever Charles Gabbert survived a bases-loaded situation in the seventh to close out El Toro.

The bunts were needed because the Eagles managed only five hits off starter Dave Reyes (1-2) and reliever David Pearce.

But Reyes, who walked five and struck out three, was done in primarily by the El Toro defense--or lack of same. Three Charger errors led to four unearned runs.

A potential double-play grounder with the bases loaded went underneath shortstop Clemente Bonilla’s glove in the second, giving Santa Margarita a 2-1 lead. A dropped fly ball gave the Eagles another run in the third. And second baseman Blair Lucas’ failure to hold a pop fly in the sixth led to two runs on RBI hits by Jeff Kuno and Randall Shelley.

Bad fielding has been undermining El Toro (7-7-1, 1-2-1) all season, Charger Coach Tom McCaffrey said. And Wednesday’s effort stung because McCaffrey felt El Toro was in bigger need of a win than Santa Margarita was.

“This was a big game for us to get back into the league race,” McCaffrey said. “Not that we’re out of it completely; but somebody has to beat Santa Margarita, and they were ripe to be beaten today. But we didn’t play well.

“Yes we are a young team, and we kind of babied them in the beginning. Now is the time to compete and make the average plays. It’s a good group, so I don’t think we have to regroup; but we definitely have to improve our concentration on the field.”