LA COSTA CANYON HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

"Nothing ugly about La Costa Canyon win over Cathedral."

NORTH COUNTY TIMES

BY JOHN MAFFEI

 "Vista-- In baseball parlance it's called an "ugly finder." As the saying goes, when a defensive player is forced to play out of position, the ball is sure to find him. Monday it happened to Bobby Zalud.  Starting in Center Field for La Costa Canyon High in the opening round of the 60 annual Lions Tournament, Zalud was called in to play shortstop in the second inning when Phillip Evans left the game with a sciatic nerve injury. And sure enough, the first ball hit to Zalud was a bolt off the bat of Cathedral Catholic's Nick Fornaca. "I took it off my stomach and turned it into a double play," Zalud said with a smile. "That one hurt a little bit." Zalud was flawless on three other chances and had an RBI double in the sixth inning to break up a scoreless tie as the Mavericks edged the Dons 2-0 in a Classic Division game at Rancho Buena Vista High.

 "I hadn't played shortstop since my fresman year," said Zalud, a senior kicker on the football team who is headed to Arkansas State on a football scholarship where he also wants to play baseball. "I took some grounders last week, but being asked to play shortstop was a big surprise."

 Senior left-hander Max MacNabb, who is headed to the University of San Diego on a baseball scholarship, made sure all his infielders were on their toes, getting 11 groundball outs to go along with his 11 strike outs.  "When your best player (Evans) gets hurt, you have to adapt and overcome." said LCC coach Justin Machado. "The ball has a way of finding guys who are out of position, but Bobby really clutched up defensively, and he had the game winning hit."

 MacNabb  and Cathedral lefty Danny Tyson were locked in a pitcher's duel through five innings. But Kevin Hill started the LCC sixth with a single to left and went to third on an error. Zalud followed with a booming double into the ally in left-center, and eventually scored on Matt Hall's infield grounder.  Tyson allowed just five hits over six innings, walked just one and struck out eight.

  "MacNabb threw a heckuva game," said Cathedral coach Gary Remiker. "But I was hoping for some better at-bats from my hitters, especially when we had runners in scoring position."  The Dons (6-4) had runners on first and second in the second inning, second and third in the third, second in the sixth, and first and second in the seventh, but couldn't push a run across.  "I'm really happy with the way Tyson threw, but LCC had better at-bats then we did," Remiker said.  "We've played a tough schedule (beating Poway, Rancho Buena Vista and Escondido), and that's the way we like it.  We're a Division III team in the Western League.  We want to show the North County teams we can play."

  La Costa Canyon (8-2) has run the gauntlet with it's schedule with wins over Carlsbad, Torrey Pines and Poway and losses to Rancho Bernardo and Vista.  "And we get to play Vista again tomorrow," said Machado. "But nothing is easy. This game was a lot of fun, well played on both sides with great pitching. It's the Classic Division of the Lions Tournament, what else could you expect?"