Prep baseball: Sea Kings stay hot

Steve Virgen

CORONA DEL MAR - Turns out, Corona del Mar High baseball coach John

Emme’s expectations of his team were correct. The Sea Kings won their

fifth straight game Tuesday. They followed the lead of their pitcher,

Nick Rhodes, and his turnaround to grab a 4-2 semifinal victory over

Mountain View in the Pride of the Coast Tournament, at CdM’s field.

The Sea Kings (7-7), who ended the Vikings’ eight-game winning streak,

will play in the tourney’s championship game against San Clemente tonight

at 7, at TeWinkle Park.

After CdM lost its sixth straight game, 6-3, to University March 22,

Emme said it was the first time a team of his played below expectations.

But since then, the Sea Kings have gone from looks of frustration with

off-rhythm play to sound defense and clutch hitting with a bit of a

swagger.

“The guys are proving that my expectations were correct after all,”

Emme said. “This is the perfect time for us to play this well.”

Rhodes, after losing his first four decisions, has rebounded to reel

off two straight pitching wins against Laguna Beach and Mountain View. He

had the right stuff Tuesday, when he went the distance and recorded six

strikeouts. The junior left-hander also scattered five hits with one walk

and held the Vikings (10-4) scoreless in the second, third, fourth, sixth

and seventh innings.

“I was rushing myself,” Rhodes, an All-Newport-Mesa District performer

last spring, said of his early season start, reminiscent of his Sea King

teammates. “All I started to do was slow my delivery down. I was rushing

things at the beginning. Now I’m hitting my spots.”

CdM is redeeming itself as well.

“We’re coming together as a team,” Rhodes said. “We’re starting to hit

the ball a lot better. We’re coming out fired up. No one should take us

for granted. We’re going to come out fired up for every game. We showed

our youth at the beginning of the year, but now we’re growing as a team.”

The Sea Kings answered a 1-0 first-inning deficit and tied it up in

the second. CdM sophomore Blake Contant scored after sophomore Todd

Macklin crushed a double to bring him in. Corona then scored two runs in

the third to give Rhodes a lead to work with.

Senior Billy Eagle, who went 2 for 4 with a double, scored on an

error, while junior Beau Stockstill scored on a sacrifice fly from junior

catcher Nick Karpe. Stockstill came in as a substitute for Josh Bradbury,

who sprained his ankle. Stockstill, who scored the game-securing run in

the fifth, went 2 for 3 and scored two runs.

Like Eagle and Stockstill, freshman Wess Presson and Karpe contributed

two hits each to CdM’s 11-hit attack.

The Vikings lost their ace and No. 4 hitter, Phillip Peinado, in the

first inning because of an elbow injury.

“(Peinado) felt something snap (while pitching),” Mountain View Coach

Ted Persell said. “That put a damper on us, emotionally. He’s our big

hitter and big pitcher. That dampened our spirits a little bit. I’m not

making excuses because a team has to fill that hole after a leader goes

down. Corona del Mar played very well defensively. (The Sea Kings) came

up with the big hits when they needed to. We just didn’t hit today, flat

out. (Rhodes) did a good job of keeping us off balance.”

PRIDE OF THE COAST TOURNAMENT

Semifinal

Corona del Mar 4, Mountain View 2

Mountain View 100 010 0 - 2 5 2

Corona del Mar 012 010 x - 4 11 2

P. Peinado, Gutierrez (1), Jacobo (4) and Hernandez; N. Rhodes and

Karpe. W - N. Rhodes, 2-4. L - Gutierrez. 2B - Hernandez (MV), Macklin

(CdM), Eagle (CdM), Long (CdM), Presson (CdM).