West Covina Carried Out on Shields

Thursday night, the West Covina American Legion baseball team didn’t want to go to bed. Friday night they presumably fell asleep while visions of breaking pitches danced in their heads.

Newhall Saugus defeated West Covina, 15-2, Friday at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium and eliminated its opponent from the double-elimination Area 6 tournament.

Newhall Saugus will play Valley North at 2 p.m. today. The area champion will be crowned Sunday and advance to the state tournament Aug. 2-5 in Yountville. Newhall Saugus and Valley North are unbeaten in two games in the tournament.

Jeremy Shields of Newhall Saugus pitched a two-hitter with 11 strikeouts and displayed all manner of movement on his pitches.

District 18 champion West Covina, which lost, 3-2, Thursday to District 20 champion Valley North, played Friday without three starters and a reserve who were benched for breaking curfew Thursday night.

“We had guys who wanted to stay up until 4 a.m.,” West Covina Coach Mark Vasilchak said. “They got down after [Thursday] and didn’t even want to try and battle back and not be embarrassed. It shows their character.”

Shields would have likely enjoyed success even against a well-rested team. The 18-year-old left-hander, a recent graduate of Hart High who probably will play at College of the Canyons next season, was in rare form.

“He finesses and moves the ball around,” Newhall Saugus Coach Pat Eggleston said. “He can make the ball do about anything he wants it to do.”

Last spring, in his only full varsity season at Hart, Shields was a reliever on a team of standout starters and received little attention.

In last week’s District 20 playoffs, however, he appeared in three of five games and Friday showed no signs of fatigue.

“I don’t overpower anybody, I just try to keep them off-balance and guessing,” Shields said. “And the more tired my arm gets the more movement I get on the ball.”

Newhall Saugus used three hits, a walk, two hit batters and two of West Covina’s five errors to grab a 6-0 lead in the fourth.

Steve Lombardi had four hits, including two doubles, and three runs batted in. Cody Joyce added four hits, including two doubles, and two RBIs. J.T. Stotts, Chris Coash, Jason Willis and Mike Granger each had two hits.

West Covina produced a solo home run by Andrew Rodriguez in the fourth inning and an unearned run in the eighth.