Baseball: Czerniachowski lifts Edison past Marina

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Steve Springer might have just sold a few more instructional CDs.

Springer--the former short-lived major leaguer, not the former longtime Times sportswriter--served as the inspiration for the seventh-inning heroics of Edison’s Chris Czerniachowski this afternoon during the host Chargers’ come-from-behind, 4-3 victory over Marina in a Sunset League game.

Czerniachowski had gone hitless in his first three at-bats before lacing a two-out, two-strike single to left-center to score two runs and give Edison, ranked No. 20 in the Southland by The Times, a stirring triumph over left-hander Paul Strong, who had struck out the first nine Chargers he faced.

Czerniachowski said he had spent part of his day listening to the advice of Springer, who played a total of eight games in the early 1990s with Cleveland and the New York Mets.

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re zero for five,’ Czerniachowski said, echoing the words of Springer. ‘You want to be that last guy up and be the hero.’

Czerniachowski was an unlikely hero considering the way things had gone for him earlier in the game.

He struck out in the first and fourth innings. Then, with a runner on second and two out in the fifth, Strong (2-1) intentionally walked Eric Snyder to bring up Czerniachowski, who grounded into an inning-ending fielder’s choice. That was on his mind when he stepped to the plate in the seventh with the bases loaded.

‘I went up there to show them what’s up,’ Czerniachowski said.

It was a dramatic reversal of fortune for the UC Irvine-bound Strong, who retired the first 11 batters he faced and took a perfect game into the fourth inning before walking Josh Lesinski with two out and giving up a two-run homer to Donald Sneed that gave Edison (7-1, 3-0) a 2-1 lead.

Chad Lewis’ two-run homer in the fifth off Arizona-bound right-hander Kurt Heyer (3-0) had given Marina (8-2, 2-1) a 3-2 advantage that Strong made hold up until the seventh. Strong finished with 11 strikeouts.

‘That’s a heart-breaker to lose a game like this that you controlled,’ Marina Coach Paul Renfrow said. ‘It’s disappointing to play that well at their place and do all the right things and just can’t finish it off.’

The Chargers know whom to thank for that.

--Ben Bolch