Corso, Thousand Oaks Able to Handle Curve in Victory

The chances of hitting a curveball were slim for Thousand Oaks High designated hitter Ian Corso earlier this season.

So Corso took extra batting practice the last three weeks with Coach Bill Sizemore.

It paid off Friday afternoon as Corso hit a curveball for a three-run double in the fourth inning to help Thousand Oaks (22-6) to a 12-3 victory over Westminster (14-10) in a Southern Section Division II first-round playoff baseball game.

Adam Leavitt, Tracy Goebel and Chris Cordeiro hit home runs for third-seeded Thousand Oaks, which is ranked No. 6 in the region by The Times.

It was Corso’s hit that gave the Lancers the lead for good.

“Coach told me to be aggressive at the plate,” Corso said. “We’d go out there and he’d throw me 75 to 100 pitches that were mostly curve and fastballs. On that pitch I hit today, I probably would have missed it a couple of weeks ago.”

Instead, he lined a curve into left-center field off Westminster starter Fred Rodriguez to score Leavitt, Cordeiro and Travis Rice for a 5-2 lead.

Corso’s hit was enough support for Thousand Oaks starting pitcher Greg Simonetti (8-1). Simonetti struck out seven and surrendered three runs in six innings.

The win prolonged Sizemore’s coaching duties at Thousand Oaks. Sizemore resigned Wednesday, effective at the end of the season, to become pitching coach at Moorpark College next season.

Sizemore, who has coached at Thousand Oaks for five seasons, said he isn’t concerned about the Moorpark position.

“Right now we’ve been talking about a five-game winning streak to win a division title,” Sizemore said. “We were down 2-0 and I told them that they had four innings left in their career and they responded.

“Ian has figured out that this game takes work. We talked about things such as pitch recognition because he wasn’t seeing the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand. To his credit, he took the extra batting practice, and good things happened for him today.”

Goebel and Cordeiro led Thousand Oaks with two hits and two RBIs apiece.

Leavitt hit his seventh homer, while Goebel and Cordeiro each hit their fourth.