LA COSTA CANYON HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

  The Avocado West League Champion La Costa Canyon Mavericks received the No: 2 Seed and a Playin round bye in the 2012 CIF Division II Baseball Playoffs.  The Mavericks will host a First round game on Wednesday May 23rd at LCC.

   The 2012 Double Elimination CIF Playoff Brackets are on the CIF website and a link is included in the LINKS menu item on the left hand side of the page.

  The other Division II Seeds were Rancho Bernardo (I), Steele Canyon (4) and Helix (3). The Division II Playin Games on Tuesday May 22nd are:

San Marcos (13-15) at Bonita Vista (17-11); EC Southwest (16-11) at Westview (19-12); and

Valhalla (12-18) at Scripps Ranch (16-13); Hilltop (14-13) at Ramona (14-15).

  In Division I the top four seeds were: Vista, Rancho Buena Vista, Granite Hills and Torrey Pines.  Carlsbad fell to the 5th seed and hosts a Playin game against Otay Ranch on Tuesday.

  The top two seeds in Division III are Cathedral Catholic and El Capitan; while Santa Fe Christian is the top seed in Division IV.

Story by Rob Terranova, North County Times:

For the second consecutive year, the La Costa Canyon High baseball team won the Avocado West League title, beating Oceanside 4-0 on Wednesday at home.

The Mavericks (18-9, 9-3) jumped on the scoreboard early with four runs in the first inning, and that would prove to be enough for senior starter Andrew Hinkle, who scattered seven hits while only walking one batter.

"(Hinkle) has really stepped it up for us this year," Mavericks coach Justin Machado said. "He pounds the zone. He gets a ton of ground balls. He really has put it all together and stayed consistent all year long.

"He's got a great presence on the mound."

Machado said strong pitching and solid defense is why his team was in position to claim the league championship again.

"Every team in this league had a lot of good pitching, and every game we played was well contested," said Machado. "But our guys went out and competed every time they took the mound, and the defense stood tall behind them, and anytime you do that you have a chance to win."

La Costa Canyon       9  -  3,   18 -  9  -  1

Rancho Buena Vista   8  -  4,   23 -  8  -  0

Carlsbad                   8  -  4,   19 -  9  -  0

El Camino                 3  -  9,     5 - 20 -  0

Oceanside                2  - 10,   12 -  17 - 0

Note: On May 3rd Carlsbad beat El Camino  25  -  0.

On May 15th El Camino rallied to score 5 runs in the 6th to tie, and 2 runs in the 7th inning to beat Carlsbad 7-5 and knock the Lancers out of a possible co-league championship and a first round bye in the CIF Div I Playoffs.

La Costa Canyon and Oceanside are in Division II.  RBV, Carlsbad and El Camino are in the larger school Division I.

Rancho Bernardo won the Palomar League Championship and the defending CIF Division I Champ is looking for a possible No. 1 seeding in this year's CIF Division II Playoffs.  La Costa Canyon is looking forward to one of the four top seeds and a bye for the Tuesday Playin Games. 

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."