Eagles outlast Mustangs

COSTA MESA — Estancia High ends every baseball practice with some uncertainty.

Third-year coach Matt Sorensen calls it the seven-innings drill, in which players are expected to run every sprint as hard as the last, though they never know how many they will be required to complete.

Competing to the end paid off for the Eagles Friday in a 4-3 Orange Coast League-opening victory in eight innings at crosstown rival Costa Mesa.

And now 5-2 after knocking off the defending league champions on their diamond, Estancia, which hasn’t made the CIF Southern Section playoffs since 1992, is confident that the conclusion of this season will be similarly open-ended.

“When I played many years ago, we just expected to win and that’s the mentality I’m trying to teach,” said Sorensen, a former Cal State Fullerton pitching star whose first two Estancia teams finished a combined 5-19 in league play. “It’s the day-to-day grind where you learn that mentality. We’ve worked harder than anybody else and we deserve it. We’re good, confident and we have positive vibes.”

The vibes were positive for five innings Friday, initiated when senior Victor Trujillo launched a leadoff homer in the second inning. It was not only Trujillo’s first homer of the season, but the first for Estancia, which also did not have a dinger all of last season.

Senior Matt Carlyle doubled and scored from second on a wild pitch in the Estancia third inning and senior Ryan Cherney drove in senior Ryan Boselo, who had doubled in the previous at-bat, in the fourth to up the lead to 3-0.

Mesa rallied with a P.J. Maloney triple and a Ryan Boulger sacrifice fly in the fourth (his team-leading 12th run batted in) and tied the game in the sixth on a two-run double by Andrew Fulkerson.

After Fulkerson’s clutch delivery inside the third-base bag, Jesse Fox walked to put two runners on.

That’s when Sorensen summoned Boselo, who struck out the next two hitters looking to end the threat.

Boselo, whose time on the mound has been limited by injuries the last three seasons, showed he is now ready to cut loose from the bump. He fanned six in three hitless innings to earn the win and also figured in the Eagles’ winning rally in the eighth.

Carlyle began the Estancia eighth by being hit by a pitch. Alex Trancoso’s sacrifice bunt moved Carlyle to second, where he remained after the next hitter fouled out. With two outs and an open base, Costa Mesa Coach Jim Kiefer elected to walk Boselo, who was then two for three.

Cherney, who had no RBIs the first six games, then drove the first pitch of his at-bat sharply up the middle to plate Carlyle and give him his second RBI of the day.

“I was just trying to [clutch] up for team,” said Cherney, who said he was neither surprised by the win, nor the strong pitching of Boselo.

“We’re going to keep winning,” Cherney said of the Eagles. “Even before this season, I thought we had a chance [to win league].

“When Boselo comes in, we know he’s going to throw strikes and get outs. We have all the confidence in the world in him.”

Boselo did not lack confidence going to his curveball, a pitch, often delivered in fastball counts, that Mesa hitters froze on five times for called third strikes.

“Usually, they can’t hit it,” Boselo said of his curveball, a pitch that he enjoys stumping opponents with. “It’s a bunch of fun,” he said of locking up hitters with the pitch that typically started around the letters, then dropped into the strike zone. “I love it.”

Boselo, Cherney and Carlyle combined for six of the Eagles’ nine hits.

Eagles’ starter Mark DeFrenza worked into the sixth, allowing three hits and two earned runs while walking two and striking out four.

Maloney was two for three with two runs and a stolen base for the Mustangs (4-4), for whom starting pitcher Tyler Peterson went the distance. Peterson struck out seven.

The two teams, who compete for the Paul Troxel Trophy that goes to the annual series winner, square off again April 20 and April 23.

Orange Coast League

Estancia 4, Costa Mesa 3

SCORE BY INNINGS

DeFrenza, Gonzalez (6), Boselo (6) and Dominguez; Peterson and Hirsch. W – Boselo, 1-0. L – Peterson, 1-2. 2B – Dominguez (E), Carlyle (E), Boselo (E) Cherney (E), Fulkerson (CM). 3B – Maloney (CM). HR – Trujillo (E).