Maitland Blasts Into Record Book

Steve Maitland shrugs his burly shoulders trying to explain his recent power burst.

“I really have no idea,” he said.

He does know that somewhere his grandmother must be smiling.

On April 14, Maitland, a junior outfielder for Cal Lutheran, hit five home runs in five consecutive at-bats, including a school-record four in the second game of a doubleheader sweep of La Verne at Cal Lutheran.

The NCAA record for home runs in a game is six.

Not since Little League had Maitland, 22, a graduate of Notre Dame High and transfer from San Diego State, hit as many as two homers in a game.

Yet, after hitting a solo homer in his final at-bat of a 12-3 victory, the 5-foot-9, 175-pound Maitland began blasting everything skyward in a 14-6 rout.

A solo home run in the first inning. Two-run shots in the third and fourth. A solo shot in the fifth.

“I was in one of those zones, I guess,” he said. “Every time I came back to the dugout, everyone was just going, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ”

Maitland nearly hit his fifth homer in the game, flying out to the warning track in center field in his fifth at-bat.

For his efforts, Maitland was drilled in the ribs by a pitch in his sixth and final at-bat. But that only made him smile.

“I probably would have done that too,” he said with a laugh.

Maitland, second on the team with 11 home runs, will lead Cal Lutheran (27-13) against Cal State Hayward (27-16) in the first round of the NCAA Division III West Regionals tonight at Hart Park in Orange.

The team’s leadoff hitter, Maitland leads Cal Lutheran with a .386 batting average and helped the Kingsmen win their ninth Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title in 10 seasons.

His day in the sun was a far cry from the drizzly autumn afternoon in 1996 when he first set foot on the Cal Lutheran campus for his grandmother’s funeral.

At the university chapel, Maitland and his family paid their final respects to his paternal grandmother, Carmel, who died from complications of a stroke while he was a freshman at San Diego State.

The son of Cal Lutheran graduates, Maitland never considered enrolling at his parents’ alma mater until emotions took their toll during his grandmother’s illness.

“Our family is very close,” he said. “My parents are very supportive of everything I do.”

Undrafted out of Notre Dame and a marginal player by most standards, Maitland wanted to prove himself at the Division I level while joining classmates in San Diego.

But family ties ultimately were stronger than his athletic goals.

Maitland left San Diego State during his first semester and took the remainder of the school year off while considering his options.

Sitting outside the chapel at Cal Lutheran, just a stand-up double from the school’s baseball field, Maitland’s voice comes close to cracking while recalling the ordeal.

“It was just weird coming here,” he said. “My great uncle was a Lutheran pastor and my aunt went here too. But I never expected to come here at that time. I’d heard about Cal Lutheran, but I really didn’t even know where Thousand Oaks was. My parents said I should check it out, but I wanted to go to San Diego State or USC. I wanted to play Division I baseball.”

Instead, Maitland had difficulty proving himself at Cal Lutheran.

A wrist injury hampered his throwing and defensive skills have never been his strength. He tried out at third base but was moved to left field.

“I remember that it was going to be hard for him to make the team,” Cal Lutheran Coach Marty Slimak said. “He wasn’t that big and he had that wrist injury. He could hit and he had some speed, but he definitely was not one of our best players.”

Several players shared the former school record with three homers in a game. Maitland’s breakthrough hardly came as a surprise, Slimak said.

“We always thought he could hit,” Slimak said. “He just had great at-bats [that day]. Even his outs were hit hard.”

In the first game of the doubleheader, Maitland fouled off 10 consecutive pitches with a full count before doubling to drive in a run. For the day, he was seven for 10 with nine runs batted in and seven runs scored.

Maitland hasn’t come close to a repeat performance. His last home run was May 4 against Hayward.

But he’ll always have the day he dedicates to his grandmother.

“She’d be pretty ecstatic,” Maitland said. “She’d be very happy to see me here, doing what I’m doing.”