High School Baseball: CdM misses against Beckman

The start and finish aren’t normally an issue for Evan Larsen. In seven of his past nine starts, he’s gone the distance for Corona del Mar High.

The junior earned his 10th start of the season on Tuesday. And in a crucial baseball game with Pacific Coast League title implications, recording the final out in the first and final innings against Beckman proved to be problematic for Larsen.

The Patriots scored three runs with two outs in the first inning off Larsen, and with two down in the seventh, they blew the game open by adding four runs. Those two innings propelled Beckman to a 7-2 win at CdM, keeping it all alone in first place.

Beckman’s run production was three short of the number opponents had scored on Larsen in 62 innings before Tuesday. The outing turned out to be the right-hander’s worst of the season, hurting CdM’s effort of moving into a first-place tie with Beckman.

With three games left in league, Beckman (15-8, 9-3 in league), ranked No. 10 in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 poll, has a two-game lead on No. 9 CdM (15-8, 7-5). The Sea Kings’ best chance of catching the defending league champions was supposed to be with Larsen (8-3), their ace, on the mound.

“That’s as hard as he’s gotten hit this year,” CdM Coach John Emme said of Larsen, who allowed nine hits, struck out five, walked three and hit one in 6 2/3 innings. “But also, you know, if we make a few plays [we have a chance to win]. We had some critical errors, [one in the first and one in the seventh] that cost us significant number of runs.

“Either we make an adjustment or [the Patriots] are going to be the champions.”

The Sea Kings must win out and hope Beckman trips up twice to have any shot of at least sharing their first league championship in nine years.

The Patriots, who have won five of the last six league crowns, appear on their way to another first-place finish. They helped themselves by hitting with two outs, singling four straight times in the first inning to take a 3-0 lead.

After Larsen threw five scoreless innings, allowing CdM to stay in the game and then cut the deficit to one in the fifth, Beckman responded in the top of the seventh. Larsen, who has offers from Cal State Fullerton and San Diego State, didn’t help him himself. He could’ve gotten out of the seventh with a double-play ball, but after fielding Tyler Geurts’ grounder, Larsen threw it wide of the second-base bag and the ball went to the outfield.

Larsen induced the next batter to groundout, and with Austin Schell up next, the Sea Kings intentionally walked the No. 5 hitter, who was two for two with one run batted in and two walks in his previous four plate appearances, to load the bases. Larsen proceeded to hit Chase Ellett, who went two for three with two RBIs, and Matt McLain walked in from third to put Beckman ahead, 4-2.

Three pitches later, with the bases loaded, Jake Groves drove a Larsen fastball toward the gap in left-center field, clearing the bases with a double. The freshman ended Larsen’s day and now Beckman can clinch first place outright with a win at home against CdM on Friday at 3:30 p.m.

“It was really important, especially to bust it up at the end,” said Groves, who in previous two at-bats against Larsen popped up to second baseman Jake Hastings.

Hastings was one of the lone bright spots for CdM, which is on the verge of getting swept by Beckman in the three-game series.

The senior went three for three, all singles. One of Hastings’ hits came in the fifth in which the Sea Kings got within 3-2.

Hastings and Kevin McCarthy both scored with the bases loaded after McLain’s fielding error on Teddy Stuka’s two-out grounder to second. That was the last batter Blake Polley faced. The lefty went 4 2/3 innings, improving to 2-0 after striking out three, while walking three and giving up four hits and two runs.

Adam Sikes pitched the final 2 1/3 innings for Beckman, getting out of trouble in the fifth, sixth and seventh. The Sea Kings, who stranded five runners in the final three innings, find themselves only one game up on third-place Northwood (6-6 in league), which wraps up league play with two games against CdM next week. Northwood won at University, 4-1, on Tuesday, dropping the Trojans to 5-7, tying them for fourth with Woodbridge.

“We just got to take care of Friday,” said Emme, whose team is looking to end a two-year playoff drought by locking up one of the league’s three automatic berths into the CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs. “If we start looking ahead of ourselves, we’re going to have people catch us from behind. We can’t have that.”

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Pacific Coast League

Beckman 7, Corona del Mar 2

SCORE BY INNING

Beckman 300 000 4 – 7 9 2

Corona del Mar 000 020 0 – 2 6 2

Polley, Sikes (5) and Schell; Larsen, Paoletti (7) and Di Ferdinando. W – Polley, 2-0. L – Larsen, 8-3. 2B – Groves (B).