Baseball: Edson Pitches Apaches to Tournament Title

The Arcadia baseball team capped an exciting first week of the season with a narrow 3-2 victory over San Dimas on Thursday to win the Elks tournament.  KJ Edson threw an impressive complete game, allowing just one earned run and striking out five.

“My fastball had a lot of movement tonight and I got my slider over when I needed to,” said Edson, a submariner.

San Dimas jumped ahead in the first inning when Alec Montanez scored on a misplayed groundball by Drew Klein.  The Apaches came right back in the top of the second and scored twice on Saints’ fireballer Jacob Ehret.  Hits by Haram Park and Trevor Gleason coupled with a Saints throwing error led to the Apache runs.

Edson shut down the Saints in the second inning, but ran into trouble in the third when he beaned Brandon Yepiz following a walk to Matt Munoz.  With two outs Ehret helped his own pitching cause by singling in Munoz to tie the game, but catcher Brendan Campbell made a quick throw to catch Yepiz trying to advance to third to end the inning.

Sloppy fielding cost San Dimas in the fourth inning.  With one out, David Dominguez hit a groundball to Munoz at shortstop, but Munoz overthrew first base for a two-base error.

With two outs, sophomore Brendan Toy laid down a drag bunt that Saints third baseman Yepiz fielded and threw into right field, allowing Dominguez to score the go-ahead run.

“It was a beautiful bunt, I wasn’t expecting it,” said Arcadia coach Nick Lemas.  “He was safe by a mile so I was hoping the third baseman would make a throw and he did and it was a bad one.”

Edson cruised through the fourth and fifth innings, but ran into a jam in the sixth inning when he beaned Yepiz to start the inning and then threw a wild pitch to put the tying run at second.  From there Edson induced two groundouts and an infield pop up to leave Yepiz stranded at third base.

“That’s the sign of a good pitcher,” Lemas said.  “They all get into jams, but the good ones get out of them.”

Edson struck out two batters in the seventh inning to earn his first complete game of the season, something he came just short of in his last outing when he threw six scoreless innings against Pasadena Poly.

“I was disappointed I didn’t go seven innings against Poly, but we had a big lead and I wanted to stay fresh for this game,” said Edson.  “We’re ready to roll into the Pacific League.”

The Apaches will face an opponent yet to be determined on Saturday in an extension of the Elks tournament.

“It’s partly a consolation game, but really just an excuse to get an extra game on the schedule,” said Lemas.  “I’m really happy with the way the guys rallied after losing the opening game of the tournament.”