LA COSTA CANYON HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

John Maffei - North County Times 5-13-12

  Avocado West League baseball heavyweights Carlsbad High and La Costa Canyon met Saturday afternoon with the league title on the line. And after 11 innings and 3 1/2 hours, Carlsbad's Matt Wezniak singled home the winning run to cap a day in which he pitched 6 1/3 innings of one-hit relief as the Lancers scored a 4-3 victory that left them in control of their play-off destiny.

 "It felt like Rocky IV, where Rocky goes to Russia and the two (fighters) stand in the middle of the ring knocking each other around," Wezniak said.

  The victory forged a tie atop the league standings between No. 10 - ranked Carlsbad (8-3, 19-8) and La Costa Canyon (8-3, 17-9-1) with one league game remaining. It also gave the Lancers a victory in the three game series with the Mavericks, meaning if the two teams finish tied, Carlsbad would be credited as the league champion for playoff-seeding purposes, (earning the higher seed over division I league rival Rancho Buena Vista)

  And what a three-game series it was.

  Carlsbad won 1-0 on Tuesday, LCC won 4-2 in nine innings on Thursday before the Lancers rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win Saturday.

  Wezniak, who started Saturday's game as the DH, had pitched just 5 2/3 innings this season. But with pitching thin in the third game of the week, the sophomore  left-hander entered in the fifth inning. He worked out of a jam in the fifth and didn't allow a hit until Danny Martin singled with two outs in the bottom of the 11th.

  "The last few innings were a boxing match," Wezniak said. "We knew LCC was a good team. We knew we weren't going to roll over them. But this series was special."

  Wezniak walked four and struck out five, allowing just one LCC runner to reach second base. "I wasn't trying to strike guys out," Wezniak said. In the ninth, tenth and eleventh innings, I tried to block everything out. I felt good because the adrenaline was pumping. I tried to use my fielders and Thomas Eshelman, my catcher, is so stable."  It was Eshelman who ignited the Carlsbad offense.

  Andrew Hinkle drove in three runs to stake La Costa Canyon to a 3-0 lead, which it held until Carlsbad scored a run in the sixth inning on a balk.  Addison Domingo reached on a two out single later in the inning and Eshelman followed with a long homer to left field to tie the game. " I knew a fastball was coming in the situation and just sat on it," said Eshelman who went 3 for 5 with a double. "This win, tying for the league title, is so big because Carlsbad hasn't won a league title in (seven) nineteen years. It is a huge confidence boost."

  Carlsbad coach Chris Greene threw Wezniak into an extra-inning game against Rancho Bernardo in March "without even seeing him throw a bullpen. The guy has nerves of steel," Greene said. "He has been clutch for us all season, but mostly with his bat."

  He did it with his bat, too, Saturday.  Wezniak's two-out, run scoring single in the top of the 11th inning - scoring Austin Avan - was his team-leading 24th RBI of the season.

  "That was a tough loss," LCC Coach Justin Machado said. "But it was a great game and an incredible series. The balk call in the sixth inning rattled us a little, and Eshelman is a tough out.  This series will help both teams in the playoffs. We'll both be battle tested, that's for sure."