Breakers still in learning mode

The Laguna Beach High baseball team opened play in the Newport Elks Tournament with a victory, but since dropped its next two games at the week-long event.

The Breakers began their season last Friday with a 12-9 win over host Buena Park. On Saturday, they made their home debut against Valley Christian of Cerritos, but dropped an 8-2 game to the Crusaders.

On Tuesday, Laguna fell 4-1 to Nogales.

“We’re 1-2 right now, and these are games that we can learn from,” Laguna Coach Dave Dopf said. “If we were 3-0, we’d think all is fine, when it’s not.

“Right now, we’re not getting timely hits. At times, our pitching has been phenomenal but in other instances, it’s put us in a hole.”

Laguna’s start to the season didn’t look promising.

Buena Park paired a few hits with costly Laguna errors to jump out to a 5-0 first-inning lead before increasing it to 6-0 through two innings.

“Our defense came out flat,” Dopf said. “Errors killed us and they only had two earned runs. In the fourth inning, things finally started to work for us offensively.”

Laguna more than made up for the six runs. Dominick Robusto put the Breakers on the scoreboard with a two-run home run. The shot ignited a 12-run inning for the Breakers and sent them toward the win.

Gabe Stansbury had a two-RBI triple among two hits and Mike Bradvica got the win. In the 8-2 loss Saturday to Valley Christian, Dalton Sype had an RBI.

Against Nogales, Bill Sanders delivered an RBI double in the bottom of the first to give Laguna a 1-0 lead but the Nobles would score the final four runs of the game.

Dillon Pierce had two hits and Nathan Pickett doubled for the Breakers.

Laguna continued play in the tournament Thursday at Saddleback. The score wasn’t available at press time. The Breakers will conclude tournament play Saturday.

On Tuesday, Laguna plays at doubleheader at Valley Christian beginning at 4 p.m.

In softball

In a wild nonleague game Wednesday, Buena Park scored five runs in the top of the seventh inning to pull out a 14-13 win over host Laguna.

Caitlin Barretto tripled for Laguna.

Laguna had opened its season with a 9-8 loss to University in the opening round of the Costa Mesa Tournament at TeWinkle Park.