Prep Baseball Playoffs : Southern Section 4-A : Snowden Tosses the Barons to a 7-2 Win

Throughout the Southern Section 4-A playoffs, Fountain Valley High School Coach Tom DeKraai has insisted that his team was as likely as any to finish its season on March 31 in Anaheim Stadium. After all, he reasoned, the playoffs are the land of opportunity, where teams can make a little momentum go a long way. All it would take is five victories.

To the surprise of many--excluding DeKraai--the Barons, third-place finishers in the Sunset League, are three-fifths of the way there. Friday afternoon, they got a complete-game five-hitter from their No. 2 pitcher and abused four Long Beach Poly pitchers for 11 hits en route to a 7-2 quarterfinal win over the Jackrabbits at Fountain Valley.

Left-hander Don Snowden, whose role this season has consisted mostly of playing the outfield and pitching whenever Fountain Valley ace Bob Sharpnack got tired, was DeKraai’s starting pitcher. The hope was that Snowden could snap off enough good curveballs to keep it close for a few innings and allow Sharpnack to finish in a flurry of fastballs.

“If we were in a tight game in the fourth or fifth inning or if Donnie would have been in any early trouble, Sharpnack would have come in there,” DeKraai said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

But Sharpnack spent the game serving as the Barons’ designated hitter. The only pitches he threw were precautionary, and they were thrown in the Fountain Valley bullpen.

Through five innings, Snowden shut out a team that had scored 16 runs in playoff wins over St. Paul and Simi Valley. He lost the shutout in the sixth on an infield hit, a walk and an RBI single by Malcolm Perkins. Long Beach Poly added an unearned run in the seventh, but Snowden was still on the mound and Sharpnack still in the dugout when Fountain Valley center fielder Jeff Olson tightly squeezed a fly ball for the last out of the game.

“I almost went to Sharpnack for the seventh inning,” DeKraai said. “But Donnie wanted to finish. He threw a strong game and he deserved to finish it.”

While Snowden had the Jackrabbit hitters struggling to make contact with curveballs (he struck out seven), Fountain Valley didn’t seem to have much trouble solving Long Beach Poly ace Erick Bryant, who entered the game with a 13-3 record.

The Barons (19-9-1) had eight hits and a 5-0 lead after three innings. Jeff Olson had a two-run double down the right-field line and Jim Reach, after missing a squeeze attempt, had an RBI single to lead a three-run rally in the third inning. Olson and Reach, the Barons’ seventh and eighth hitters, respectively, combined to go 5 for 6 with four RBIs.

Long Beach Poly (21-8) ran wild early in the game, and these Jackrabbits would be well advised to think before they run. Baserunning blunders cost them several scoring opportunities in the early innings. The first was the most crucial, for it left them without their starting shortstop.

Bobby Holley, who has signed a letter of intent to play baseball at UCLA next year, led off the second inning with a single to left. Two batters later, he was at third with Perkins at first. When Snowden made a throw to first to keep Perkins close, Holley broke for the plate, where Fountain Valley catcher Terry Reichert was waiting.

Holley lowered his shoulder and tried to separate Reichert from the ball. Saying Reichert got the best of the collision would be an understatement. Holley was out by several feet and was ejected for his part in the violent clash. As if that weren’t enough, he was hunched over in pain with what was diagnosed as a probable fracture of the collarbone.

This clearly wasn’t Long Beach Poly’s day. But for Fountain Valley, it was another successful day in the land of playoff opportunity.