Sports
Matadores Can’t Get Out of First Gear
Long Beach~If only the season had a reset button.
But after Saturday's 12-1 defeat to Moore League power Long Beach Wilson, a couple years removed from the No. 1 ranking in the United States, the start of the Suburban League campaign Wednesday against visiting Norwalk is the next best thing to a do-over, from the poor individual statistics to the collective 3-6 record.
Wilson (6-2) parlayed a bases-empty, two-out rally into four first-inning runs and never looked back against the Matadores, who were playing their eighth contest against a Division I opponent. In the fourth frame, six of the 10 unearned runs all but finished it off.
Senior centerfielder Karl Perez, playing with the most vigor, continued to carry a hot bat, going 2-for-3 with a double and getting robbed on a line drive to center his first time up.
Senior secondbaseman Garrin Haile smacked mirror-image line drive singles to center, the first one in the second inning to bring in senior leftfielder Justin Torres (hit by pitch) for La Mirada's only run. Junior shortstop Andres Rodriguez dunked one into leftfield to get Torres into scoring position.
Senior firstbaseman Mike Piazza, in the throes of the biggest slump of his life, deserved better with a blast to Wilson's centerfield Death Valley, backing up the Bruin against the fence about 400-feet away before hauling it in.
Other than that, the Matadores showed little life once again offensively, managing just five hits.
Wednesday's league home opener against the Lancers begins at 3 p.m.
Go ahead and hit that red button.
Matadores Overpowered by Powerhouse
La Mirada~Letting a great opportunity get away to make a statement, the La Mirada High School baseball team was knocked around by the nation's No. 1-ranked team in a doubleheader sweep to visiting Lakewood, 10-3 and 8-0.
The Lancers improved to 9-0 on the season, including outscoring La Mirada 29-3 in three meetings, while the Matadores fell to 3-5, with four of the defeats coming to teams that have polled in the country's top three.
The brutal early-season schedule continues at talented Long Beach Wilson at 11 a.m. Saturday. Come league and the playoffs, this team will certainly be battle-tested.
Matadores Get Well Against Colts
Carson~After scrapping against the topnotch pitching of five straight Division I opponents, La Mirada was able to feast against the home cooking of the Colts in a 13-3 rout Tuesday that was shortened to five innings with the 10-run mercy rule.
The Matadores (3-3) put up six runs in the first and and last frames to break out of a hitting slump while dropping struggling Carson to 1-5.
The mound foes get tougher right away, though, with a doubleheader Thursday against the nation's No. 1 team in Lakewood and the very tough club of Long Beach Wilson in Saturday's opener of the Redondo Tournament.
La Mirada To Host Number One Team in Nation
La Mirada~After facing five Division I opponents to start the season--including a nationally ranked team in Edison--it might have seemed that things would get a little easier for the struggling La Mirada High School baseball team.
Think again.
Lakewood is the nation's new No. 1 squad in the maxprep.com rankings, and guess who the Matadores face in not one, but two games, at home Thursday? Uhmm, Lakewood.
Yep, the same team that clobbered the Matadores, 10-0, in a second-round Loara Tournament contest March 6.
However, the doubleheader will be an opportunity for La Mirada (2-3), a multi-talented and experienced squad itself, to regroup and rebound and prove that its lofty rankings in numerous pre-season polls weren't without foundation.
The Lancers (5-0), fresh off winning the brutally tough Loara Tournament championship by outscoring their opponents 39-7, are led by a terrific player in senior Jeff Yamaguchi, a Long Beach St. signee who earned the event's MVP.
In the first meeting against La Mirada, Yamaguchi hit a monumental atomic blast to the top of Lakewood's leftfield Chainlink Monster, an entity which is cleared less than the times Godzilla destroyed Japan.
The first game is set for 12:30 p.m., with the nightcap approximately 3 p.m.
Not a Saturday at the Park
La Mirada~If the Matadores continue to hit and play defense as poor as it has the past two games, a promising season will not materialize.
La Mirada added another of its trademark Saturday clunkers with an uninspiring 5-1 loss to visiting Dana Hills to complete the Loara Tournament a very disappointing 2-3.
Four hits--4-for-24--and 11 strikeouts in a shocking and alarming trend doomed the Matadores even before two more late errors led to the defeat.
Totaling 12 strikeouts the previous game against reknown 6-foot-7 lefty Henry Owens of Edison was completely understandable. The kid is ridiculously overpowering and polished and he will easily average double figures in K's a year before he's expected to be a first round draft pick in the 2011 amateur draft.
Matadores Miscues Prove Costly
Huntington Beach~You don’t usually win with one hit but visiting La Mirada came oh so close Thursday in the Loara Tournament against Edison, a nationally ranked team which is also No. 1 in the state.
Matadores Rout Golden Hawks
La Mirada~That's more like it.
Just a few days after a pathetic two-hit day at the plate against Lakewood, La Mirada High School stormed back to rout visiting El Dorado, 13-4, in Tuesday's third round of the Loara Baseball Tournament.
It took only the third game for the Matadores (2-1), the Los Angeles Times' No. 20 pre-season squad and the Whittier Daily News' No. 2, to reach their low point of the season after giving up three runs in the first inning to the Golden Hawks following an 11-0 rout to Lakewood. But just like that, the black clouds lifted and La Mirada put on its first display of offensive lightning.
Torres Wins Game for Matadores
Anaheim~La Mirada’s baseball team wasted no time in taunting and thrilling its fans in the season opener of what could be a memorable one in a long history of great baseball squads at the campus.
Down and out not once but twice in a Loara Tournament game against Fountain Valley at Brookhurst Park, the Matadores got off the mat and escaped with a 5-4 victory in 10 innings.
J.T. Torres, fresh off CIF Player of the Year honors in football, came up Buffalo again by hitting a towering, game-winning double to the left-center fence for a 5-4 win over the snakebitten Barons.
Matadores Yet to Find Hitting Shoes
Lakewood~When the vast majority of the core of this year's La Mirada varsity baseball team were freshmen, they went and had their heads handed to them at Lakewood in a 10-0 loss.
The casts on both sides have changed little and, unfortunately, neither did the results Saturday in the second round of the Loara Tournament.
With a rainstorm blowing through just as the Matadores were going to take the field for warmups, getting in the contest was in deep jeopardy. But the dark clouds disappeared and so did La Mirada's bats for a second straight game to open the season in an 11-0 shellacking at the hands of the Lancers.
La Mirada (1-1) will likely play a home game Tuesday in the third round against either Vista Murrietta or El Dorado, one of which will also carry a 1-1 record into the meeting.
Matadore Baseball Season Returns!
Editors note: Follow the Matadores quest for their eleventh Suburban League title in twelve years this season as we cover every game to the very end.
La Mirada~La Mirada's pitching was dominant in a two-game sweep of visiting Montebello and Whittier in a shortened official scrimmage this past Tuesday rescheduled from Saturday's rain bursts. The Matadores won both mini contests, 2-0, by allowing just one hit over seven innings.
La Mirada, ranked No. 20 in the Los Angeles Times' pre-season rankings, opens the promising 2010 season Friday in the Loara Tournament against Fountain Valley at 3 p.m. at Brookhurst Park.
Recent posts
Splendid September events and other La Mirada news
