Long Beach Poly baseball has tough day in playoff loss to Great Oak

LONG BEACH — Long Beach Poly couldn’t match Great Oak at the plate, on the basepaths, on the mound nor in the field, and so the Moore League baseball champions’ season came to a close Tuesday afternoon in a second-round CIF Southern Section playoff game.

The Jackrabbits (20-9-1) managed just two hits, gave up a couple of unearned runs and faltered at key moments in a 6-1 defeat to visiting Great Oak, the fourth seed in Division 3.

The Wolfpack (20-9-1) won for the eighth time in their last nine games and move on to a quarterfinal showdown Friday at Northview (15-10).

They turned a tight game into a romp by scoring five runs in the fourth through sixth innings thanks to four hits, four walks and a couple of errors.

“We got outplayed by an opponent who is really good,” said Poly head coach Brent Lavoie, who watched most of the last two innings through the left-field fence on Martin Luther King Avenue after he was tossed in the top of the sixth while arguing a call at the plate. “Some timely hits on their end, they defended, they did things well. … Tip your cap to them. They were the better team, and they executed the best, and that’s the team that usually wins.”

Great Oak starter Michael Shanahan allowed just two hits and a run in four innings — singles by Daniel Mariscal and Chris Murphy to start the bottom of the fourth and Ethan Tapia’s one-out sacrifice fly to bring home Mariscal — and Blake Bambrick didn’t surrender a hit in three innings of relief.

“Shanny did a great job,” Wolfpack head coach Eric Morton said. “Our big thing with Shanny is give us at least four innings, and our bullpen will take it from there. Nice that we have Cam (Mabee) back on the mound Friday.”

Mabe is 7-3 with a 1.19 earned-run average.

Great Oak went ahead in the second when Jacob Fisher doubled with one out and scored on Jonah Sebring’s single, then used two singles, a walk and Luke Jepsen’s sacrifice fly to score Isaiah Lopez to make it 2-0 in the fourth.

Poly then scored its run but couldn’t get more.

“We had first and third with nobody out, and you’re thinking this could be the big inning, this could be our opportunity,” Lavoie said. “Us getting only one that inning, I think that was a big momentum-swinger. Because (with the run) we’re back in the game, but we needed more that inning.”

Great Oak, pointedly aggressive on the basepaths, scored two in the fifth — with Oregon-bound Zach Arnold coming home scoring when third baseman Edgar Rosales’ throw to the plate bounced past Mariscal and Josh Paino coming home on Lopez’s groundout — and two more in the sixth, the first after two calls that irked Lavoie.

Lavoie argued with the umpires after Jesse Dickens was called safe at first after first baseman Jordan Guevara tagged him when shortstop Murphy’s throw forced him off the bag.

Dickens stole second, went to third on a groundout, then appeared to slide under the tag when Rosales threw home on a Paino grounder.

Lavoie, who said his players motioned that they’d made the tag on both plays, stormed from the dugout and screamed at the umpires, was pulled away, then returned to the plate and was thrown out of the game.

Paino then stole second — one of seven Great Oak stolen bases — went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Cameron Mabee’s single.

“A bang-bang play, and at the end of the day, you’ve got to respect the decision that’s made and get back to your dugout and go to work,” Lavoie said. “But I thought the ball beat him there in plenty of time, and the way my catcher reacted. If my catcher didn’t react like that, I’m probably going back to the dugout, but the way he reacted was like, ‘Coach, he was out, the tag was on his shoulder,’ and I think it’s a tough call.”

Isaac Richardson gave up four hits and two runs before departing with one out in the fourth.

Reliever Tim Rife allowed three hits and walked four the rest of the way and surrendered two earned runs.

“Obviously, nobody wants to end their season on your home field, int the way that it does in the playoffs, but that’s going to happen to every single team except one,” Lavoie said. “These guys were hungry, believed they could chase a (CIF) title, but winning the Moore League title (for the first time in seven years) was quite special, quite significant, and these guys, they’re proud of their accomplishments, as they should be.”

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