La Habra Hopes to Keep Riding Crest

Last year’s 16-win season by La Habra was supposed to have been a fluke. First-year Coach Mate Borgogno had shaped up the Highlander defense, pitching and enthusiasm, but a team that had not won a Freeway League title since 1988 was not taken that seriously.

So what can you say about La Habra now? Besides the fact the Highlanders are for real?

Friday’s 5-3 victory over visiting Buena Park was a school record 14th consecutive win for La Habra (16-5, 10-1). The next victory will set a single-season school record. And the Highlanders, who finished second in league last year, can probably clinch the title next week.

But that doesn’t mean Borgogno is preparing any celebrations.

“Sure we want to win league,” Borgogno said. “But if we win league and lose in the first round of the playoffs, then the year is disappointing. We want to look at the big picture, keep playing until they tell us we have no more games.”

La Habra’s Ryan Huff (6-2), who gave up eight hits and pitched his third complete game despite a strained left hamstring, said the players have taken the words of Borgogno and his staff as gospel.

“We’re not thinking league; we’re thinking playoffs, and making a deep trip into the playoffs,” Huff said. “We’re where we are because the coaches have given us a system we believe in.”

The system is based on pitching, defense and opportunistic offense.

Case in point: La Habra was trailing Buena Park, 1-0, in the third and had the bases loaded with two outs. Facing Daniel Flores (4-3), Jesse Delgado lifted a lazy fly to left that was dropped by Eric Wolford, one of five Buena Park errors. Two runs scored.

Highlander first baseman Shaun Beutner made it 3-1 with an RBI single. And when Beutner--who should have been out on an attempted steal of second--danced around Anthony Cabral’s tag, a fourth run came home.

“That inning was a microcosm of our season,” said Buena Park Coach Russ McHale, whose team is 8-11, 3-8. “We’re playing a lot of young kids who are having to learn to play [at the varsity level] and mistakes are going to hurt.

“But if your young kids are going to learn the game, they have to learn how to battle through times like this.”

In another league game:

Fullerton 10, Troy 8--Chad Staffieri got the victory after pitching the fourth and fifth, then came back in the seventh to finish the game for Fullerton (13-7, 7-4). He also hit a grand slam in the fifth.