Mission Viejo rolls into Div. 2 final
MISSION VIEJO - It took some time for the Mission Viejo baseball team to live up the preseason rankings, but now, the Diablos are one game away from being the true No. 1.
Mission Viejo advanced to the finals with their 11-7 victory over fourth-seeded Santa Barbara on Tuesday in a CIF-SS Division 2 semifinal game.
Mission Viejo (22-13) will face Etiwanda on Thursday in the finals at 7:30 p.m. at Dodger Stadium.
The Diablos began the season as the county preseason No. 1 and ranked in the top 10 in the Baseball America national poll. The struggles and losses soon followed.
Tuesday’s victory was the eighth consecutive for the Diablos. They closed the regular season with a two-game sweep of Trabuco Hills and have had their sights set on playing under the Dodger Stadium lights since then.
“We’ve been playing with a different emotion because it is the playoffs,” Diablos coach Chris Ashbach said. “Guys carry each other in the playoffs because they know it could be the last one. We have a real senior-heavy team, so I don’t think anybody wants to go home.
“The ability’s been there, that’s why we had all the preseason stuff (rankings). It was just a matter of putting it together and I think they finally did at the right time."
This is Mission Viejo’s first trip to the finals under Ashbach, who has been at Mission Viejo for 14 years.
“We knew were good, but some games we didn’t play our best,” left fielder Parker Anderson said. “Now we’re playing our best and we’re doing everything that we can do to win. We’re swinging (the bats) … everything is going good right now.”
The good times were set in motion Tuesday thanks to a five-run third inning for the Diablos. They finished with 11 runs on 16 hits.
Santa Barbara (23-7) led 3-2 entering the inning. Boog Powell and Ryan Raslowsky led off the inning with singles and were balked into scoring by position. Anderson came up and popped a double into the right-field corner to score both runners.
Anderson wasn’t on base for long because designated hitter Jake Kuluris came up one batter later and drilled the first pitch from Santa Barbara starter Kees t’Sas over the fence in left center for a two-run home run and a 7-3 Mission Viejo lead.
“I was down in the count and he gave me an outside pitch,” Anderson said. “I went oppo (opposite) and luckily the wind carried over the right fielder's head.
“The momentum went on our side when that happened, and then Jake (Kuluris) came up got a curveball and nailed it over the fence. That just boosted us up to the huge inning.”
Anderson was 3 for 4 with two runs scored and three RBIs. Danny Poe was also 3 for 4. Ryan Muno, Boog Powell and Raslowsky had two hits apiece.
Santa Barbara chased Mission Viejo starter Dallas Draviczki after Cameron Gniadek’s two-run home run that cut the lead to 7-5 in the top of the fourth with no outs.
Anthony Shew (6-0) entered and retired nine consecutive batters before a lead-off double in the seventh. Shew went four innings to get the victory.
“I felt good after the first couple of innings,” Shew said. “I was a little nervous and I always feel good when I’m nervous. I got a couple of guys outs, started to get into a rhythm and I felt good after that.”
The Diablos scored a pair of runs in the fourth, on a squeeze by Anderson and a sacrifice fly by Kuluris, for a 9-5 lead.
“Our motto is Think Blue,” Shew said. “We’ve been thinking about it the whole time.”
