Making his pitch: It’s been an up-and-down...

Making his pitch: It’s been an up-and-down ride for Brandon Cohen the past couple of years, but the one-time Calabasas High baseball star hopes to soon create another peak, this time in the desert.

As a senior pitcher at Calabasas in 1995, Cohen led the Coyotes to a 25-1 record and was 10-0 with a 0.45 earned-run average.

Cohen played sparingly at Wyoming the next season, but enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

“[The Cowboy program] was the closest thing to the big leagues those people had,” Cohen said. “We drew about 1,000 fans a game, we were on the news every night, people wanted autographs--it was the greatest thing.”

The joy ride ended abruptly when Wyoming’s program was cut because of a lack of funding. Cohen wound up at Pierce, where he was 5-1 last season as a reliever on a dismal team.

Cohen is working out at least five days a week, hoping his physical condition will help catch the eye of coaches at Arizona, where he plans to walk on.

“I just want to get back to Division I baseball,” Cohen said. “But I need to bulk up first. I don’t throw that hard, so I have to impress [the Arizona coaches] in every other way.”