Garrett Crenshaw of Cypress waits for a pitch during Saturday’s first game (Photo: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Cypress baseball team had the offense going on all cylinders Saturday in the first game of a doubleheader against El Toro helping the Centurions to a 9-6 victory.
It’s a good thing too.
To see the slide show, please click on the first photo
The Centurions’ defense was a concern for coach John Weber, who is trying to lead Cypress to its third CIF title.
Cypress (19-3) had nine hits but committed five errors. Starting pitcher Brett Wozniak, who pitched the first 5 and 1/3 innings, got the victory at Cypress. Jackson Ronnigen came on to get the save.
“Thank God we swung the bats right?,” Weber said. “Woz I think struggled a little bit mechanically but made some pitches when he needed to but we made five errors.
“If we don’t make five errors, the score is different and he probably finishes the ball game. We got to clean up our defense. We haven’t turned a double play in it seems like a month so we got to get better at that.”
Cypress, ranked No. 1 in the CIF Division 1 rankings, did have plenty of offense and jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Wozniak helped himself with a bases loaded double.
“That was real big because it set the tone and kind of got us going,” Weber said. “When you’re playing really good opponents like them and we played them earlier in the year and beat them pretty good, when you jump on them right away that usually that fosters a little bit of roll over. But Mike (Gonzales, the head coach) does great job and El Toro is a really good program.”
Cypress added three more runs in the second to move ahead 7-1.
El Toro (9-9-4) battled back with two runs in the fourth inning on a two-run double by Paul Skenes and then trimmed the Cypress lead to three with three runs in the sixth. Cade Schaetzl and Simpson had RBI singles and Jacob Howhannesian drove in another run with a sacrifice fly. Ronnigen was able to get out of the inning with any more runs scoring and blanked El Toro in the seventh.
“I thought our kids did a good job in the late innings and got some runs back and had an opportunity there with the bases loaded and got some good hits,” said Gonzales. “They had five errors that helped us out a little. We had some key hits in some good situations and they did a good job of getting out of it.”
Leadoff hitter Mike Marsh scored two runs and had a base hit, Luke Davis had a double and scored two and Elias Rios knocked home two runs with a double in the fifth inning to lead Cypress.
Tyler Chaffee walked twice and was hit by a pitch and scored two runs.
Skenes had two hits, two RBI and scored a run, Simpson had two hits and an RBI and Sean Guevera had two hits and scored twice for El Toro, which had 10 hits.
Cypress won the second game 8-2.
RELATED: Can Cypress bring home a third CIF title?
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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