Chaminade Gets a Depth Charge

Chaminade High made a few things perfectly clear in a 4-1 victory over Burroughs in the second round of the Southern Section Division III baseball playoffs Tuesday at Burroughs.

First, its pitching staff is much deeper than ace right-hander Chris Gray.

Bruce Greenwood pitched five solid innings, allowing no runs on two hits and striking out five to improve to 10-1.

Second, there are others on the team who can hit besides Ryan Hamill, who has 15 home runs.

Second baseman Chris Martinez had a solo home run and a run-scoring single to pace the Eagles. Hamill was hitless in three at-bats.

The top-seeded Eagles (26-2) advanced to the quarterfinals Friday against Redondo at Chaminade.

“Greenwood pitched a heck of a game,” Chaminade Coach Scott Drootin said. “Everybody expects Gray to win, but Bruce has been there the whole way. He pitched two big games we needed to win [the Mission League title] and today he hit every spot we called. We definitely spread it around here.”

Greenwood said the Eagles wouldn’t be where they are if they were a two-horse team.

“I think we’ve proven that we’re one of the best teams around,” Greenwood said. “We have a lot of good players and we’re hungry to win it all.”

That hunger came in handy against the Indians (19-8), the Foothill League champions who were playing in the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 1957 and were hungry themselves for an upset.

Burroughs had its chances, loading the bases with one out in the seventh, but could not deliver any clutch hits.

Two of the Indians’ three hits were infield singles and they hit only three balls out of the infield--two of them fly outs.

“We just couldn’t find our breakout,” Burroughs Coach Jose Valle said. “If you aren’t running on all cylinders in the playoffs, it’s going to show. It’s not like you can hide from anybody.”

Greenwood retired the first 12 batters before hitting Anthony Fabrizio to lead off the fifth. Two batters later, Jeremy Cartee singled between shortstop and third base to end Greenwood’s no-hit bid.

Martinez, who is batting .484, opened the scoring in the third with a one-out solo home run to right field against Burroughs starter Tony Sandoval (6-3).

Tyler Dersom made it 2-0 in the fourth when he stole home on a double-steal. In the fifth, Martinez drove in Spencer Gordon, who led off with a double, and Dan Dworski knocked in Keith Mait with a groundout to second base.