The Signal : Wednesday, April 24, 2002 : Grant Gordon

Canyon cashes in Cent pitching

Canyon’s bats bashed away again on Tuesday as the Cowboys chased five Centurion pitchers en route to a 15-9 Foothill-League win.

Canyon (17-3, 8-2) slugged four home runs to make up for an off day pitching and a lackluster day in the field.

“We swung the bats, you can’t complain about fifteen runs,” Canyon coach Adam Schulhofer said. “We’ve been scoring a lot of runs, but we still need to do the other things.”

On the other side of the diamond, Saugus (12-8, 4-6) scored the most runs allowed by the green and yellow this season, but shoddy play in the field and a dismal outing from nearly the entire pitching staff culminated in the team’s fourth consecutive loss.

“How do you teach timely hits and good pitches at the right time?” Saugus coach Casey Burrill said. “That’s something we’re really looking for is a big play at a big time.”

Canyon didn’t waste any time as both Sergio Almanzar and Josh Schreck went yard in the bottom of the first to grab a lead the Cowboys would never relinquish.

“We just wanted to jump on them early,” said Schreck, who went 3-for-3 with a walk, six RBI’s and three runs scored. “We wanted to get deep into their bullpen so we could get the advantage Friday.”

Saugus did, however, grab the first lead of the game when Cents’ lead-off man Josh Fogel took a Jake Coash 3-2 pitch to straight center for a 1-0 lead. Coash gave up another hit in the inning before retiring the next three Cents.

Coash would not return in the second inning, leaving due to back problems.

“We lost Jake after the first, so we had to get the bats going,” Schulhofer said.

The bats more than got going as Almanzar tallied a solo shot to tie the game at 1-1.

Following Almanzar’s dinger, an Eric Ashbrook double, a Ryan Burke walk and a Clay Britton single had the bases drunk with Cowboys when Schreck belted a Luke Ajer offering over the center-field fence for a 5-1 lead.

“I was just looking for a good pitch to hit,” Schreck said. “I just wanted to get that spark going.”

The Centurions followed suit in the top of the second by loading the bases for the first of three-consecutive innings, but were only able to capitalize for a total of four runs.

Casey Klein (4-0), who relieved Coash, notched three-straight outs to strand all three Saugus runners in the second, as Almanzar made an excellent catch in right to record the last out.

Saugus was able to capitalize in the third when Ajer singled in Matt Underwood, who had also singled, to cut the Canyon lead to 5-2. The Cents added two more runs when Matt Romero and Adam Tripp trotted home on wild pitches to put Saugus a run back.

The Cowboys quickly re-upped their lead though as Britton, the third batter in the Canyon third, went yard to score himself and Burke, putting the Cowboys up 7-4 and consequently chasing Ajer off the mound.

Saugus brought in Matt Hughes to relieve, but he would not favor much better as he was taken deep by Justin Schwartz on a three-run dong that also scored Schreck and Cody Leavitt. Saugus brought in Robert Flynn, who finished the inning without any further carnage.

Hughes was the only Centurion to score in the fourth as Tripp grounded him home to make the score 10-5. Saugus stranded three in the inning.

Schwartz doubled in the fourth to score Ashbrook and Burke for a 12-5 lead, which put Saugus pitcher Jeff Prindle into the mix. Schwartz would come around to make it 13-5 on an RBI-single by Kyle Zeiler.

Canyon added their final two runs of the game when Almanzar scored on a wild pitch and Ashbrook came around on a botched pick-off attempt by Saugus’ fifth and final hurler, Chris Ahlheim.