Adams Pitches Granada Hills Into Final : Granada Hills Seeks Relief and Adams Obliges, 10-5

Senior right-hander Jeff Adams returned to the mound after only one day’s rest to pitch Granada Hills High to a 10-5 victory Monday over Venice, advancing the Highlanders to the championship game of the Holt-Goodman baseball tournament.

Granada Hills (6-0) plays today at 2:30 p.m. at Birmingham High against Westchester, which defeated Birmingham on Monday, 7-6.

Adams, who pitched a complete-game win in Saturday’s 6-4 victory over Arcadia in the second round of the 16-team tournament, expected a day of rest Monday. But he was rushed into action when starter Gabe Miller faltered after working a 1-2-3 first inning.

Miller, a sophomore right-hander called up from the junior varsity, allowed three runs in the second before Coach Darryl Stroh summoned Adams. He worked 5 innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts to increase his record to 4-0.

Granada Hills had 10 hits and took advantage of five Venice errors. Senior second baseman Chris Murphy led off the bottom of the first with his first home run of the season and finished the day with two hits and three runs scored. He scored from second base on Sean Brown’s sacrifice fly that scored two runs.

Granada Hills also got a big play on the base paths when Charlie Fowlks stole home on the front end of a double steal in the third inning.

Getting two hits each for Granada Hills were Steve Kovavic, Kevin Carmichael and Jeremy Leach.

In other tournament games:

Arcadia 4, Poly 3--The Parrots (8-2) lost their second consecutive tournament game when Arcadia scored four unearned runs in the third inning on two singles, three walks and three errors.

Nick Lymberopoulos (2-1), who missed the last week with the chicken pox and hadn’t pitched in three weeks, took the loss. Poly’s Mark David, who is 8 for 16 in the tournament, had a double and a home run.

Nogales 4, Sylmar 3--Olonzo Woodfin, who was originally scheduled to rest during spring vacation, pitched an unimpressive five innings in the Spartans’ loss at Sylmar.

Woodfin allowed two earned runs on six hits with two walks and three strikeouts. Chris Romo (0-1) pitched the final two innings and took the loss after allowing a single and three walks in the seventh.

Woodfin and Joe Contreraz each had two hits and an RBI for Sylmar (7-3), which has lost two of three tournament games.

Grant 15, Verdugo Hills 14--The two East Valley League teams combined for 21 runs in an hour-long seventh inning in which 31 batters went to the plate. The teams combined for 11 hits, 8 walks and 6 errors during a consolation-round game.

Grant (5-5) scored 12 runs in the seventh to take a 15-5 lead. Javier Delahoya, who earned his first save of the season, had a triple and a double in the top half of the seventh.