Huntington Beach upended in CIF quarterfinals at home by El Dorado
For six Huntington Beach High baseball players, this year marked the end of their playing days together. Six summers ago, those six players played a role in Ocean View bringing a Little League World Series title to Huntington Beach for the first time.
A couple of those players are household names, Hagen Danner and Nick Pratto, who many project to go in the first round of next month’s Major League Baseball Draft. They, along with the four other players, Trevor Windisch, Justin Cianca, Dylan Palmer and Christian Catano, are nearing the end of their senior year in high school. And they believed they were at the midway point of another magical finish together.
With it being Memorial Day weekend, summer has arrived. For those six players, the start of the summer will not conclude as it did at the end of the summer of 2011.
There won’t be another championship celebration in Huntington Beach.
The top-ranked high school team in the nation by many media outlets saw its season come to an abrupt end on Friday.
Behind a complete game by Kyle Luckham, El Dorado pulled out a 4-1 upset at top-seeded Huntington Beach in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.
Four of those players on that Little League World Series winning team started for the Oilers (28-5) on Friday, Danner on the mound, Pratto at first base, Windisch at shortstop and Cianca at third base.
Danner went into the game with an 11-0 record and a 0.96 earned-run average. He began to lower his ERA after striking out five and retiring the side in order in the first three innings.
The problem was Crestview League champion El Dorado had an undefeated starter who matched Danner through five innings.
The defense made great plays behind Luckham (7-0). Third baseman Garrett Stark fielded a grounder behind the bag and fired to first base, making sure the Oilers stranded runners on second and third in the second inning. In the first inning, catcher Angel Saldivar threw out two runners trying to steal second base.
Luckham was also involved in an inning-ending double play in the fifth. With a runner on second, he fielded a hard-hit grounder to the mound. After seeing the runner try to go to third, Luckham chased him down, tagging him out. Then the batter who hit the comebacker was heading to second base, and Luckham ran him back to first and threw the ball in time so first baseman Ethan Hunt could tag him for the third out.
Luckham and Danner had shutouts going in to the sixth, until Danner allowed something he hadn’t all season, a home run.
El Dorado coach Matt Lucas said it helped the Golden Hawks that they had faced another hard-throwing right-hander in Hans Crouse in their 6-0 win at Dana Hills in the second round on Tuesday. And it showed when Jesse Lopez led off the sixth against Danner.
Lopez hit a solo home run to left field, giving El Dorado a 1-0 lead. The homer came on a full count, as he pounded an inside fastball, and it meant a lot to Lopez, who went three for four, to come through.
Two years ago, Lopez was part of the El Dorado team that lost at Huntington Beach 5-1 in the quarterfinals. Lopez, as well as another member from that 2015 team, Adrian Romo, delivered big hits for the Golden Hawks (21-8-1), allowing them to advance to the semifinals for the first time in seven years, and they get to play host to Corona (23-9) on Tuesday.
“That was huge for us,” Luckham said of the hits by Lopez and Romo, both seniors. “The home run to get us going … kind of put Huntington into shock.”
After Danner (11-1) exited, striking out seven, allowing four hits, hitting two and walking one in 5 1/3 innings, the Oilers brought in Josh Hahn with the bases loaded.
The left-hander got the second out on a fly ball to left field, but then he fell behind 2-0 on Romo. On the next offering, Romo hit it into shallow right-center field barely eluding the glove of diving second baseman Cole Minato. The single drove in two runs, and El Dorado took a 3-0 lead.
Huntington Beach answered in the bottom half of the sixth. The left-handed hitting Pratto smashed a solo home run off Luckham, cutting the deficit to two runs.
Pratto’s second home run in as many games was Huntington Beach’s first hit off Luckham since Windisch’s single in the second inning. Two batters later, Hahn doubled for the second time, hitting one off the fence in right-center field, and then Windisch drew a four-pitch walk.
With two outs, the Oilers had runners on first and second. Coach Benji Medure decided to pinch-hit for Cory Moore, opting for another left-handed bat in Justin Brodt. Luckham wound up striking out the 6-foot-7 Brodt swinging to get out of the inning.
“They really pitched Cory tough today,” Medure said of his left fielder, who hit two soft infield liners off the end of the bat in his first two at-bats. “Justin Brodt was having a great [batting practice] session going the other way. We were just looking for a three-run jack right there.”
Luckham gave himself an insurance run in the seventh. His groundout to first scored a run to make it a three-run game.
The junior right-hander came out for the seventh. He got the first two batters out, before giving up a single to the No. 9 hitter, Dylan Ramirez. It was the Oilers’ sixth and final hit off Luckham.
With the top of the order up next, Luckham didn’t want to see Pratto, or Danner, even though he struck out Danner three times swinging on changeups, so he went right after Ben McConnell. Luckham got him looking on four pitches, recording his seventh strikeout.
From the on-deck circle, Pratto, and from the dugout, Danner, could only watch the Golden Hawks celebrate. They, not Huntington Beach, moved on. The Oilers’ dream season of winning a section title for the second time in three seasons was over.
“The one game doesn’t define us,” said Medure, whose team won the Sunset League title, as well as the Boras Classic state tournament title. “This is the best year in Huntington Beach history and we don’t need a ring to prove that.”
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CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs
Quarterfinals
El Dorado 4, Huntington Beach 1
SCORE BY INNINGS
El Dorado 000 003 1 – 4 6 0
Huntington 000 001 0 – 1 6 0
Luckham and Saldivar; Danner, Hahn (6), Madole (7) and Lopez. W – Luckham, 7-0. L – Danner, 11-1. 2B – Hahn (HB) 2. HR – Lopez (ED), Pratto (HB).
Twitter: @ByDCP
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