Robinson fills hero's role again for Ocean View
HUNTINGTON BEACH — A player of Timmy Robinson's ilk doesn't grow on trees. When Ocean View needs a clutch play, both he and his team simply expect him to come through.
In Robinson they trust.
“I’d put my house on it,” Seahawks coach Shane Borowski said. “When the game is on the line, he's a different beast. He comes to life. It’s like nothing I've ever coached. Twenty years of coaching baseball, I've never seen a kid that wants to be up in that position and gets the job done. He does.”
And he did, again. Robinson blasted a mammoth three-run home run in the sixth inning Tuesday to lead Ocean View to an 8-4 victory against Segerstrom.
The Seahawks (13-12, 10-4) won their seventh Golden West League contest in eight tries to remain tied for first place with Westminster. The Jaguars (16-8, 8-6), which came in just a game out of first place, fell to fourth place.
As Robinson was mobbed by his teammates at the plate, he screamed, “Let’s go! They can’t hold me!” The 6-foot-1, 235-pound senior center fielder, batting .531 this season, was partly alluding to the fact he was 0 for 2 in the game and thus far had yet to hit a ball hard in two meetings with the Jaguars.
Robinson’s bomb, which broke a 4-4 tie, was his third go-ahead home run at Ocean View this season and county-best 11th overall.
“I like pressure,” said Robinson, who committed to USC this week. “I'm thinking, I need to get the job done. Find a way. I'm pretty confident because I've been doing it my whole life.
"They threw me two curve balls in a row. I had a feeling it was coming."
Ocean View catcher Robert Fogarty, who recently returned from a knee injury that threatened to end his season, hit a bases-clearing double in the fourth inning to give the Seahawks a 4-0 lead.
Segerstrom responded with four runs in the fifth inning, capitalizing on a single, two errors and three walks. The Jaguars then had two chances late to take the lead but fell short.
“I told the guys when we got off the bus and in practice, 'This is going to be playoff-caliber baseball,' ” third-year Segerstrom coach Erasmo Ramirez said. “If our program wants to turn that corner and make any type of noise in the playoffs, then these are the games we need to come out on top in. We had our chances.”
Segerstrom is in the midst of its best season in the program’s six-year history. The Jaguars are expected to earn an at-large playoff berth regardless of the outcome in Thursday’s regular-season finale at home against Ocean View. A year ago Segerstrom went 2-13 in league and 6-20 overall.
“I was born and raised in Santa Ana and you look at all the schools in Santa Ana, we got that tendency to not be anywhere in the standings,” Ramirez said. “For us to be right in there is refreshing. The community can be proud of that. I’m proud of what we’re doing. We’re working hard and trying to get better.”
