Top baseball teams lose on eve of CCS Top baseball teams lose on eve of CCS (May 21, 2004)

Spartans, Lancers finish regular season with winning records

By Jon Wiener

Despite being on top of their divisions for most of the season, Mountain View and St. Francis both stumbled into CCS last week, blowing late leads to close out their season.

Mountain View, the SCVAL El Camino Division champions, fell to Gunn 4-3 on May 13 after giving up two runs on just one hit -- an infield single -- in the top of the seventh inning. With the game knotted at 2-2 in the sixth, the Spartans managed four baserunners (from three singles and a hit batsman) but could not score a run.

Pitcher Will Evenson had the Titan batters off-balance most of the day, striking out five in a row after giving up a run on three consecutive singles and a fielder's choice in the second. Gunn scratched out only two more singles and a walk off Evenson in 6-1/3 innings, but benefited from five errors in the field.

After walking Gunn's ninth-spot batter to start the seventh, Evenson turned the ball over to Nick Warmbrodt. But two subsequent errors loaded the bases, and after getting a called third strike for the first out, Warmbrodt walked Gunn's cleanup hitter on four pitches to give the Titans the 3-2 lead. A two-out single knocked in what later proved to be a valuable insurance run.

The Spartans recovered in a make-up game a day later, finding their bats just in time for the playoffs. Locked in a scoreless tie with Homestead, Mountain View struck for nine runs in the bottom of the fifth, paving the way for a 12-1 victory and finally getting some momentum going into its first-round CCS game against 10th-seeded El Camino on May 20. The first pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m. at Mountain View.

Unlike the Spartans, St. Francis didn't get a chance to right themselves after being upset by a lesser team last week. The Lancers had Serra down to its final at-bat in the WCAL tournament semifinal, but gave up six runs to lose 14-13.

A week after losing their shot at perfect season to Bellarmine, they also lost their star shortstop. Senior Kyle Spraker suffered several fractures after being hit in the face with a pitch in the second inning. He is recovering but will not return this year.

Lancers Coach Chris Bradford accompanied Spraker to the hospital and was not around to witness his team's seventh-inning collapse. But he said he hoped that giving the team four days off over last weekend would help the players recover physically and psychologically for CCS.

"Sometimes you need that rest period," said Bradford. "Our pitching hasn't been too good recently and that might be because we have some tired arms."

Junior Grady Fuerst will fill in at shortstop for the Lancers. Fuerst started at shortstop for half of the season while Spraker recovered from a torn hamstring.

The loss to Serra also cost St. Francis in the seeding for CCS. Ranked number one in the section and even in some national polls during their 21-0 start, the Lancers wound up with a number-three seed, behind first-seeded Wilcox and second-seeded Serra.

St. Francis hosted Santa Teresa Wednesday after the Voice's press time. The winner of that game will face the winner of Leigh-Palo Alto 10 a.m. Saturday at PAL Stadium in San Jose.

E-mail Jon Wiener at sports@mv-voice.com

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