Sailors sound alarm in time

Tony Altobelli

NEWPORT BEACH - Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

After two innings of lethargic play, the Newport Harbor High boys

baseball team snapped out of the funk and defeat visiting Century in the

quarterfinals of the Foothill-Costa Mesa Tournament Tuesday.

“We came out extremely flat, but we were able to bounce back,” Newport

Coach Jim Kiefer said. “We haven’t been able to do a lot of playing

because of the weather and we were just going through the motions early.”

That lethargic play allowed Century (1-1) to jump out to a 3-0 lead

before Newport (2-0) answered the alarm with a five-run third inning and

never looked back.

Sailors’ starting pitcher Chris Ward settled down and threw five solid

innings to earn the victory. The senior right-hander allowed only four

hits and struck out six.

Junior left-hander Cody Forsythe came in and struck out five of the

six batters he faced, much to the delight of Kiefer.

“The thing for both Cody and Chris is to get ahead of the count on

each batter,” Kiefer said. “Chris settled down and was able to do that,

as did Cody.

Trailing, 3-0, Newport, with some help from Century’s shaky defense,

sent 10 batters to the plate in the third inning and scored five runs,

four earned.

Garrett Brant and Ward each had RBI hits in the third, while three

Centurions’ errors helped prolong the Sailors’ at-bats.

Again, Ward helped his own cause with a two-run single in the fourth

inning, scoring Alan Lane and Donovan Wong. He finished the game 2 for 4

with a run scored and three RBIs.

Unlike the Sailors of the past, this squad pounded out 11 hits,

including 10 singles to manufacture their 10 runs.

“With our new dimensions in left field and the new bat specifications,

we’re going to be more of a singles, doubles and triples kind of team,”

Kiefer said. “We are going to manufacture runs with multiple hits,

instead of waiting for the three-run home run all the time.”

Alan Lane had three hits, scored two runs and had one RBI for the

Sailors, while Brant chipped in a single, double, one run and one RBI.

Century opened the game with a squeeze bunt by Oscar Ramirez, scoring

Alex Gutierrez, who had two of his team’s four hits.

In the second inning, Newport retired the first two Century batters

before a hit batsman, a stolen base, a single, an infield error and a

balk led to two more runs, giving the Centurions the early advantage.

FOOTHILL-COSTA MESA TOURNAMENT

Championship semifinal

Newport Harbor 10, Century 3

Century 120 000 0 - 3 4 4

Newport Harbor 005 221 x - 10 11 2

Alves, Alvarez (3), Medina (4), Gutierrez (5), Pineda (6) and Ceja.

Ward, Forsythe (6) and Brant. W - Ward, 1-0. L - Alves, 0-1. 2B -

Gutierrez (C) 2, Brant (NH).