Rosen a Harbor nightmare

CORONA DEL MAR — The big hit, the big pickoff move, Corona del Mar High baseball coach John Emme watched it all in the final inning.

The Sea Kings beat rival Newport Harbor, 2-1, but something troubled Emme a half an hour after Tuesday’s Battle of the Bay game at home.

It wasn’t Chris Rosen’s walk-off RBI single, or left-handed reliever Trevor Wilson picking off a runner at first base.

“I just can’t get the baserunning out of my mind,” Emme said. “The baserunning on both sides was atrocious.”

At least the last baserunning blunder didn’t belong to CdM (4-2).

The Sea Kings took advantage of it after Wilson caught a runner leaning to his right off first base.

Wilson walked the next batter, but got out of the inning by striking out the next batter swinging, setting things up for the junior to win his first career game after 1 2/3 innings and CdM’s fourth straight game.

Rosen delivered. He drove the ball toward the right-center field gap to bring in Austin Elliott from second for the win, and the rest of the team followed from the dugout to celebrate.

“It feels so good,” said Rosen, a senior first baseman who went two for three and recorded his second career game-winning hit. “We couldn’t come through in the clutch. We had opportunities, but we just couldn’t execute.”

Blame the baserunning for stalling potential runs for both sides and solid starting pitching performances from Newport Harbor’s R.J. D’Cruz and CdM’s Danny Moskovits.

The Sailors (2-4) had two players get picked off. Catcher Michael DiRocco caught one of those in the fifth.

The Sea Kings saw one runner get picked off in the third. Another in the fifth found himself getting doubled up while on a groundout he tried to reach third base, where a Sea Kings’ runner already stood.

Instead of two runners in scoring position with one out, there was only one with two outs.

That player, Vinnie St. John, led off the inning with a triple. But CdM finally brought St. John home.

D’Cruz, who worked brilliantly out of seven full-count situations, made a mistake to Elliott. The right-handed senior drove a fastball the opposite way for an RBI-double, giving CdM a 1-0 lead.

“I missed the sign,” said D’Cruz, referring to the location catcher Harold Levy called the pitch to be thrown. “I left it too far in. He wasn’t supposed to hit the ball.”

D’Cruz prevented CdM from getting on a roll during his five innings. He struck out six, walked two and hit one batter. D’Cruz also brought in Newport Harbor’s lone run on a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

After 92 pitches, the junior was pulled in favor of Patrick Brennan.

Brennan struggled with his control, hitting two batters and walking one. After getting the first out in the seventh, Brennan ran into problems. He walked the second batter and beaned the next one.

Knowing the right-hander had to throw strikes, Emme felt good about his next batter in Rosen.

Rosen wasted little time. He hammered Brennan’s first pitch, and for at least a moment Emme forgot about the baserunning mishaps while watching the winning run come home.

“It was a nice win,” Emme said. “The first time in my 10 years here that we’ve gotten the sweep of the big three [sports] from [Newport] Harbor, football, basketball and baseball.”

NonleagueCorona del Mar 2,

Newport Harbor 1

Score by Innings

Newport 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 1 5 2

CdM 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 - 2 6 2

D’Cruz, Brennan (6) and Levy; Moskovits, Doering (6), Wilson (6). W -- Wilson, 1-0. L -- Brennan, 1-1. 2B -- Elliott (CdM). 3B -- St. John (CdM).