PHOTOS: Laguna Beach uses little ball to sweep a doubleheader from Beckman

Laguna Beach was led in the second game by (from left) Charlie Pillsbury, Aidan Kidd and Nolan Smith (Photos Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Laguna Beach High’s baseball team had a highly-successful start to the season Saturday, sweeping a doubleheader from Beckman on the Patriots’ home field.

The Breakers did it their way, too.

After winning the first game 4-3, Laguna Beach captured a 5-0 victory, using strong pitching by Aidan Kidd, who went the first five innings; Brooks Hoganour, who pitched the sixth; and Nick Bonn who finished it out in the seventh.

To see the slide show, please click on the first photo

Laguna Beach played the way Coach Jeff Sears wants it to, stealing six of six bases, bunting for one single and applying a sacrfice bunt to move a runner over.

“It’s aggressive little ball,” said Sears. “We pick pitches to run on and pick counts to run on. We’re the adjusters. No one is going to adjust to us. They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing because they’re bigger, stronger and faster than we are.

“We just do the little things and we do them really well. It was a great way to start.”

Kidd, the starting pitcher, struck out the side in the first inning and wound up with six strikeouts while allowing just one hit in five innings.

He also helped himself at the plate with an RBI single in the first inning driving in Nolan Smith, who had singled and stole second.

Smith went 3 for 3 with two runs scored and three steals and third baseman Charlie Pillsbury went 2 for 4 with two RBI.

Laguna Beach had seven hits off four Beckman pitchers, including starter Hayden Zweig. Beckman was limited to one hit, a double by Nick McLain in the third inning. The Patriots had two runners on in the fourth and fifth innings but could not break through.

Beckman, the defending Pacific Coast League champion, was 22-5 last season, but lost some key players off that squad.

“It’s just a lot of guys getting their first action of varsity baseball and it obviously didn’t go the way we wanted to as far as the results go,” said Beckman Coach Kevin Lavalle. “But we can look back at the game and there were probably five or six windows that were open and we didn’t climb through them.

“The hard thing now is being able to pick yourself up after two losses. But I have a feeling we will be fine. We have a lot of guys who are going to gain experience every single pitch that they see. I’ve said it before, the purpose of these games is to prepare yourself for league and we’ve got five more before we play our league opener. So our job as a coaching staff and a team collectively is to get the ship right….365 days in a year, if you’re going to let one day decide who you are as a baseball team, you probably don’t belong out here anyway. I’m happy with the effort of most of our guys and I think we’ll be fine.”

In the first game, Jackson Yelland pitched four innings and did not allow an earned run for the Breakers. Eric Silva had a sacrifice fly and Bonn had a base hit with two strikes.

Silva also came in with the score 4-3 and got the save, striking out four.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com