El Camino Real Gets Loe-Balled by Granada Hills

If there was any doubt before, there shouldn’t be anymore.

With right-hander Kameron Loe pitching, Granada Hills High is capable of beating the best teams City Section baseball has to offer.

El Camino Real became the latest highly regarded team to become a believer, falling to Loe and the Highlanders, 2-1, Wednesday in a Northwest Valley Conference game at Granada Hills.

Loe fell short of the dominant performance he turned in against Chatsworth earlier this season, but his good was plenty good enough.

What trouble Loe experienced came in bunches. He allowed four hits--all in the first two innings--including two doubles, both in the second inning when the Conquistadores scored.

Loe walked three--all in the sixth inning.

“I don’t think that was his best at all,” Coach Steve Thompson of Granada Hills said. “The Chatsworth game was a lot better. But he was tough when he had to be and our defense made the plays.”

Granada Hills (12-3, 5-1 in conference play) broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth on a single, a sacrifice bunt, an error and a wild pitch. Bobby Baca scored the winning run when Josh Deneau bounced a pitch that rolled out of play.

Until that pitch, Deneau (3-2) successfully bobbed and weaved through control problems. He allowed three hits and walked only two despite routinely pitching from behind in the count.

Baca’s single to center leading off the Granada Hills fifth was only the second hit Deneau allowed that left the infield.

The first waaay left the infield.

Peter Gunny led off the first by hitting Deneau’s third pitch 430 feet for a home run, a shot that landed on a backstop at the deepest part of center field.

El Camino Real (12-3, 5-2) tied the score in the second on a leadoff double by Ryan Gunches and a sacrifice fly by Mike Leduc. Gunches will pitch today in a rematch against Granada Hills at El Camino Real.

Loe (6-1) allowed a two-out double to Jessie Dechter in the same inning, but got his curveball working and retired the next 11 in a row.

In the sixth, his curve temporarily abandoned him, but he used his fastball to pitch out of a bases-loaded jam.

“We have a strong lineup, one through nine, and you wouldn’t expect us to see that many fastballs,” shortstop Conor Jackson of El Camino Real said. “But he just gases it up.”