CV baseball’s season comes to heart-breaking end

photo by Leonard COUTIN

By Seth AMITIN

Crescenta Valley High’s baseball season ended at Stengel Field on Tuesday when the Falcons lost to Northwood in the CIF Southern Section Division II wild-card game, 9-1.
The Falcons had no answer for Northwood starting pitcher Zack Weiss, who went the distance, allowing only one run on two hits and one walk.
Weiss also went 3 for 5 at the dish with a home run and five RBIs.
“Nineteen wins is a lot of wins, especially with the young group of guys we have here,” said Crescenta Valley Head Coach Phil Torres. “But I’m tired of saying ‘our young group of guys.’”
The loss comes off the heels of another tough home loss at the hands of Arcadia.
The Falcons wrapped up their regular season with a loss to the Apaches, 6-2, on Friday. The game had no outcome on league standings – Arcadia had already sewn up first place in league and CV was already locked in for second place – but the Apaches finished the regular season with a perfect record in league.
Crescenta Valley High’s Tyler Pollak had one of the last at-bats in the game. The Falcons were down 6-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning and he ripped a liner right at Arcadia’s dugout, causing a few players to duck.
It was a little consolation for the loss.
“They’re our rivals, but they put together a great season,” Pollak said after the loss. “We didn’t play our best and they deserved it.”
Crescenta Valley (19-6, 11-3 in Pacific League play) put up a great season this year, their best record in league since 2008, when they beat Arcadia for the league title. That was also the last year the Falcons beat the Apaches.
“They played a great game,” Torres said. “They out-pitched us from the get go. [Apache shortstop] Garrett [Tuck] did everything he needed to do to lock up league MVP today.”
Tuck made three key defensive plays, including fielding a soft grounder bare-handed and firing it to first for the final out of the game. He went 2 for 4 in the game with an RBI.
Crescenta Valley’s Elliot Surrey pitched the majority of the game, but early struggles and bad defense gave the Apaches a 5-0 lead in the third inning.
In the bottom of the third inning with one out, Surrey got a single and catcher Joe Sedano got hit by a pitch.  A passed ball advanced both runners and Troy Mulcahey got one run in on a ground ball to the left side.  Kyle Pomeroy singled in Sedano and the Falcons found themselves down by three runs with four innings to play.
Surrey found his groove and pitched shutout innings in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but the Falcons were unable to revive the offense. The Apaches added one final run in the seventh inning and the game ended, 6-2.
The Apaches had 10 hits on the day, nine of which were singles. Arcadia side-armer KJ Edson pitched well, going all seven innings and giving up two runs on four hits and a walk. He had six strikeouts.
For the Apaches (22-3, 14-0 in Pacific League play), the 2010 season marked the first time they’ve gone perfect in league play since at least 2005, according to maxpreps.com.