No. 1-Seeded Hart Is Shocked, Upset by Upstart Irvine

A good 20 minutes had passed, but the Hart High baseball players were still in disarray.

A couple were in the outfield staring at the sky, a handful were down the first base line watching a sprinkler turn slowly around the infield and a few sat on the bench, heads buried in hands.

The season of dreams became an inning of nightmares, and top-seeded Hart lost to unseeded Irvine, 4-1, in a second-round game of the Southern Section Division II playoffs on Tuesday at Hart.

The Indians (26-2) surrendered four runs in the second inning and never recovered, their bats surprisingly silent as their season ended without flair or fireworks.

The team that averaged 8.4 runs and almost four extra-base hits stalled in both categories, falling victim to the pinpoint pitching of senior right-hander Derek Smith.

Smith (8-1) mixed his pitches and mixed up Hart at the right times, forcing the Indians into weak pop-ups or destructive double plays. Smith, who was clocked in the low 80 mph, did not strike out a batter but allowed only seven hits and one walk.

“Nobody’s done that to us all year,” Hart Coach Jim Ozella said.

Hart did itself in with a shaky second inning.

Starter Eric Posthumus (6-2) walked three and surrendered four hits, including a two-run double by No. 9 hitter Travis Nault.

Phil Tognetti relieved Posthumus with two out and allowed only two hits the rest of the way, but the Vaqueros, who had nine seniors in the lineup, scored all the runs they needed on a stifling afternoon.

“I knew with our experience that the bus ride, the weather and the fact that we’re playing the No. 1 seed, none of those things would affect the way we’d play,” first-year Coach Rich Crowe said.

Hart scored in the fourth inning, on Chris Gagnon’s run-scoring blooper to right field.

Hart got a runner past second base only one other time, but Bill Susdorf was stranded at third in the third inning on a play that defined Irvine’s defense. With two out, Chris Giordano lined a shot back at Smith, but the ball ricocheted off Smith’s foot to third baseman David Parker for a 1-5-3 groundout.