Christian Thompson of Cypress celebrates his double in Saturday’s game. (Photos courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone)
La Mirada pushed across a run in the bottom of the seventh Saturday to edge visiting Cypress, 1-0, in a pool play baseball game in the Loara Tournament.
The contest was between two of Southern California’s best baseball programs and, although not nearly as significant, was a rematch of a CIF Division I semifinal game in 2019 won by Cypress, 1-0, in nine innings.
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Only four players who were on the 2019 rosters were on the field Saturday and all played like champions.
For Cypress, pitcher Braden Genera pitched six shutout innings and right fielder Christian Thompson had two wonderful running catches and doubled. A third Centurian on the 2019 team, Tyler Vitelli, was injured and did not play.
La Mirada’s veterans from the 2019 game were catcher Andrew Pyle, who had a single and a walk and handled pitchers Christian Gutierrez (five innings, three hits, no runs) and Vincent Segovia (two innings, one hit, no runs) through seven scoreless innings.
The other Matador on the CIF semifinal roster, Noah Rodriguez, had an amazing run-saving stop of a one-hop shot he handled for an inning ending out with a runner on second.
He also had the day’s most significant hit, a double to the base of the fence in left-center with one out in the seventh that scored pinch-runner Nick Barron from first.
While both coaches will certainly lament the teams’ inability to get a key hit before Rodriguez’s double, the game was well-paced and lasted little more than two hours and featured a number of exceptional defensive plays by both teams. Besides Rodriguez and Thompson, Cypress second baseman Daniel Garcia also made a handful of good defensive plays as did first baseman Jason Reid.
There is not much rest ahead for either team. Cypress hosts San Clemente Monday in a 3 p.m. non-league game and La Mirada has a non-league match Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. at Corona del Mar.
—-Story courtesy Jim McCormack for OC Sports Zone
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