West Covina South Hills Eliminates Magnolia in 10th

Magnolia had a good baseball season, but it came to a painful end Tuesday at the hands of West Covina South Hills sophomore Edgar Ortiz.

Ortiz, coming up as a pinch-hitter, rammed the first pitch of the 10th inning over the left-field fence to give host South Hills a 3-2 victory in a Southern Section Division IV semifinal game.

This season was Magnolia’s most successful since 1977.

It’s doubtful the players could be comforted by their 23-3 record or the Orange League title they won last month.

Instead, they could only think about how close they came to making it to the championship game Saturday at Anaheim Stadium. Now, that opportunity goes to South Hills (22-7), which meets San Luis Obispo.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t go to the show,” Magnolia Coach Manny Rodriguez said. “I had a bunch of great kids and I hate to see it end this way.”

Magnolia’s best chance to win came in the eighth when Art Garland had an infield single and took second on a throwing error. He went to third on Brian Morris’ groundout. Colt Martin struck out and after a walk to Rich Michelson, Greg Young took a called third strike to end the inning.

Gary Carlson got a one-out walk in the ninth but didn’t advance past first. Martin lined a single to right with two outs in the 10th but didn’t get any farther.

South Hills scored in the first on a sacrifice fly by Chris DiBlasi and Andrew Rodriguez hit a homer in the third for the other run.

Magnolia scored its runs in the fifth. Eric Fruend started the inning with a single and was sacrificed to second. Joe Camarillo doubled in the first run and scored one out later on Garland’s single to left.

Gary McNeill pitched the first nine innings for South Hills and sophomore Ryan Varela (1-0) worked the 10th for the victory.