Slumping Camarillo Pulls a Swinging Lineup Out of Its Hat

THOUSAND OAKS —  Camarillo High baseball Coach Scott Cline was desperate to get his team out of a horrid four-game batting slump.

So Friday, Cline filled the Nos. 2 and 3 spots in the lineup with regulars Rodell Desamparo and Nathan Kaup, then put everyone else’s name into a hat and had his statisticians complete the batting order.

You know, the old pull-a-lineup-out-of-a-hat technique.

And guess what?

Camarillo’s jumbled batting order responded by bombarding Westlake for 15 hits in a 13-10 victory at Westlake, assuring the Scorpions of a second-place finish in the Marmonte League.

Camarillo (19-5, 10-4 in league play) had scored only 13 runs on 22 hits in its previous four games, a stretch that included three losses.

“Over the last two weeks we’ve stopped swinging the bats for some reason,” said Cline, whose team reached the Southern Section playoffs for the first time in 11 years. “I figured I had to do something to stir things up.”

The first seven Scorpions reached base and scored against Warrior pitcher Jay Kenny (8-4), who left the game without getting an out.

The big blow in the 10-batter inning was a grand slam by seldom-used Ryan Geisler, whose name was drawn to bat fourth. Prior to his home run, Geisler had seven at-bats this season.

“You can’t ask for a better team pick-me-up than that,” Cline said. “He hasn’t hit me that hard in [batting practice].”

The Warriors (11-11, 7-7) couldn’t recover from the Camarillo first, despite solo home runs by Tyler Kostjuk and Steve Udell and two by Chris Parker, who had three RBIs.

Andy Kroneberger hit a solo home run for Camarillo, and Pat Colborn had three hits and four RBIs.

The Scorpions batted around for the second time in the game in the sixth, scoring four runs on four hits.

Cline pulled starting pitcher Kaup (5-1) to start the seventh, but brought him back after reliever Tom Trejo allowed three consecutive baserunners with one out.