LA COSTA CANYON HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

  Going in to the last game of the season the La Costa Canyon 2010 Baseball team was ranked 3rd in the State and 25th in the Nation(Max Preps). In completing the three game sweep of Torrey Pines the Mavericks earned the No. 1 Seed in the CIF San Diego Section Division I Baseball Playoffs.

  The Mavericks will play the winner of the May 25th No.9 Otay Ranch (21-10) versus No. 8 Carlsbad (13-16) play in game, on Wednesday May 26th at 3:30 pm at La Costa Canyon High School.

  The San Diego CIF Section Division I Seeds are:

1. La Costa Canyon; 2. Poway; 3. Torrey Pines; 4. Rancho Bernardo;

5. Bonita Vista; 6. Rancho Buena Vista; 7. Hilltop; 8. Carlsbad; 9. Otay Ranch; 10. Vista; 11. Oceanside; 12. San Diego.

See Link Menu for link to CIF Playoff brackets. 

Mavericks complete three-game sweep of rival Falcons

By John Maffei: North County Times jmaffei@nctimes.com

" LA COSTA - A week ago, La Costa Canyon High catcher Will Swanner said the No. 1 thing on his wish list was a three-game sweep of rival Torrey Pines and an out-right Avocado League baseball championship.  Dreams can come true.

  Wednesday, in the third of three well-played games, junior shortstop, Phillip Evans doubled home Bobby Zalud with the winning run in the eighth inning to give La Costa Canyon a dramatic 3-2 victory over Torrey Pines, last year's league champion.

  The victory moves the No. 1-ranked Maverks to 26-4 overall and secured the outright title at 14-1. Torrey Pines ranked No. 4, finished the regular season 22-9, 12-3 in the league.

  Tied at 2 in the eighth, Zalud reached on a one-out error and Kevin Hill walked, bringing Evans to the plate.  The shortstop jumped on a first-pitch fastball, driving it up the alley in left-center field to score Zalud.

  "I was looking for something up, something I could drive." Evans said. " I squared it up, and it felt good. Our whole team has been thinking about this since Torrey Pines swept us last year.  Our main goal was to win the league title. Now we can focus on the playoffs and winning a section championship."

  La Costa Canyon took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Evans' RBI single. Torrey Pines tied it on Zack Zehner's RBI doule in the fourth.  LCC grabbed the lead back in the bottom of the inning on Kyle Durrschmidt's RBI single.

  Durrschmidt made a great throw from right field to Swanner at the plate to cut down the tying run in the sixth, but Reed Mason's two-out, RBI single in the seventh tied the game.

  "The way we kept coming back showed a lot courage." said Torrey Pines coach Matt Chess.  "LCC is a great team, and we have a great team.  We played them tough all three games (losing 4-3, 4-1 and 3-2). I'm really proud of the way we battled."

  LCC and Torrey Pines won't be in the same league next season, and Mavericks coach Justin Machado said he'll miss the rivalry.  "The last two years, this has been two great teams, playing great baseball before big crowds and a great atmospher." Machado said. "All three of the games this season were special, like playoff games. Now we need to focus on the playoffs. The league title is great, but it's not the ultimate goal."

Playing in the final game of the series and of the 2010 Season, the Mavericks wanted to beat the boys from Torrey for many reasons... a perfect league record was at stake, a chance to sweep another series, a chance to extend a two-month long, 23 game winning streak - but most importantly it was another opportunity to beat arch rival Torrey Pines.

Neither team scored in the first, but LCC scored three big runs in the second inning.  Torrey also scored to keep things interesting.  From there, the Mav's added another run in the third then both teams scored in the sixth inning.  Two key double plays by the Maverick defense shut down drives by the Falcons.  The Mavericks won the game with a final score of 5-2.  Solomon and Balderas were the big hitters for the day with three hits each.

Colin Winters started and got the win, giving up just one run in four innings.  Carter Johnson spelled relief and got the save.

With this victory the Mav's finish the 2010 season with a final record of 31-2, and an Avocado League record of 15-0.  A few statistics for the year:

• 12 Runs Scored Per Game (average)
•  3 Runs Scored By Opponent Per Game (average)
•  9 Run Differential Against Opponent
• 2.1 Average Earned Runs Given up Per Game
• 48 Home Runs Hit By The Team

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   It was a classic match up between Torrey Pines's power pitcher Cole Swanson and La Costa Canyon's star Junior short stop Phillip Evans which was won by Phillip blasting a double into the left center field gap to score Bobby Zalud from second base with the game winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Mavericks scored in the first inning to take a 1-0 lead on Evans' first rbi hit, the Falcons tied the game at 1-1 in the top of the 4th and the Mavericks retook the lead 2-1 in the bottom half of the 4th on Kyle Durrschmidt's rbi single. The Falcons tied the game again in the top of the 7th to force extra innings before the Mavericks put the game away in the bottom half of the 8th inning. Trent Swart let the save get away from him in the 7th but picked up his 7th win of the year by shutting down the Falcons in the 8th inning.  Max McNabb pitched a strong 5 innings allowing only 1 earned run on 5 hits, walking 1 and striking out 5.  Jake Webb held the Falcons scoreless in the 6th inning.

   La Costa Canyon completed the three game sweep of Torrey Pines to clinch sole possesson of the Avocado League Championship with a record of 14-1, and 26-4 overall while Torrey Pines fell to 12-3 in league and 22-7 overall.  The win also probably secured the number one seed in the CIF Playoffs and a bye for the Tuesday May 25th Play In round.  La Costa Canyon will probably host a First Round CIF Playoff Game on Wednesday May 26th at 3:30 pm.

  In a well played game between District rivals the difference really came down to the one error committed by Torrey Pines in the bottom of the 8th inning which allowed Bobby Zalud to reach first and move to second on a walk to Kevin Hill. The Mavericks turned the tables on the defending league champs who in 2009 had swept the three league games from the Mavericks to win the 2009 league championship.

  The Maverick defense continued to be absolutely stellar, with Bobby Zalud making two diving catches in center field, Phillip Evans vaccuming up every chance at short, Justin Graeber, Kevin Hill and Jake Webb combining for a 5-4-3 double play,  Kyle Durrschmidt making a great throw from right field and Will Swanner blocking home plate long enough to tag out a Torrey Pines runner at home plate in the top of the 6th inning.

  After winning 14 games in a row Torrey Pines looses three close games in a row to the number one ranked Mavericks and can only hope to face the Mavericks once again in the CIF Playoffs. 

On May 18th Phillip Evans was selected to participate in the Aflac All American game that will be played on August 15th at Petco Park in San Diego.

Click on the link to read the article in the North County Times.

http://www.nctimes.com/sports/high-school/nct/article_3b6a543a-6c93-5abe-be7f-3509ee8a56c6.html

 More photos of the press conference