Mercy Rule

Hamlet Nalbandyan Much to the displeasure of those who were hoping for a quick one at Montrose Park on Friday, the Burbank Major Baseball All-Star team avoided the mercy rule in its second-chance bracket game against Vaquero. Down by 11 runs with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, the 11- and 12-year-olds staved off elimination for at least another inning, thanks to a two-run home run by Austin Holgate. But all that did was delay the inevitable, because there would be no stopping Vaquero on this day. Jim De La Torre's squad collected 12 hits and benefited from eight errors to post a 12-5 victory.

Suffice it to say they?re good. Crescenta Valley beat Arleta in both games of a double-header on Wednesday, 13-0 and 14-3. In the first game, CV pitcher Heather Bacon pitched a perfect game through five innings, with nine strikeouts, before the game was called due to mercy rule. Stephanie Ziemann had a home run with five RBIs. In the second game, Crescenta Valley repeated the mercy rule behind Kali Cancelosi?s strong pitching. Delaney Gay went 2-for-3 with a home run. The Falcons are now 11-1 on the season, 2-0 in league; their lone loss came last week to Fullerton, 3-2, in the High Desert Classic.

Babe Ruth 13s open tourney with win The La Crescenta Babe Ruth 13-year-old All-Star baseball team saw its offense sizzle in the Arizona heat. La Crescenta finished with 13 hits Thursday to earn a 15-1 win against the Tucson Alley Cats in an opening-round game of the Pacific Southwest Regional in Surprise, Ariz. The game was called after 4 1/2 innings because of the 10-run mercy rule. La Crescenta, which captured the Southern California State Tournament on July 18, played Northern California champion Antioch in a winner's-bracket contest Friday night.

NORTHWEST GLENDALE — Right now, it's hard to fathom that the Crescenta Valley High baseball team has actually lost a Pacific League game this season. But the Falcons did — way back on March 23. Since then, they've been unbeatable to the tune of 14 straight victories overall and eight in a row in league after Friday afternoon's lopsided 11-1 triumph against host Hoover that ended after five innings due to the mercy-rule. "It starts in practice, we work hard in practice and it's starting to show in games," said Falcons shortstop Kris Kauppila, who went two for four with two runs batted in and a triple on Friday.

Peter Samore GLENDALE -- Though a 10-0 loss to Tualatin City, Ore., brought the Foothill-Tujunga major softball all-stars' season to an end Wednesday at Alderwood Park in Alderwood Manor, Wash., the team can reflect on the success it enjoyed this summer. For the third straight year, Foothill-Tujunga emerged as the State champion and, this year, came within one game of the World Series in Portland, Ore. The 11- and 12-year-old all-stars from Tualatin City ended the Western Regionals Tournament in Alderwood Manor, Wash.

Sang Lee Police 6 2 6 1- 15 13 1 Cal Moving 0 0 0 0- 0 2 2 Game called after four innings, 10-run mercy rule Police IP R ER H BB K Crum 3 0 0 1 0 4 W. Hoy 1 0 0 1 0 1 Total 4 0 0 2 0 5 Cal Moving IP R ER H BB K Dickson 1 6 3 3 5 1 Reyes 3 9 8 10 1 2 Total 4 15 11 13 6 3 WP- Crum (9-1) LP- Dickson (0-1) S- W. Hoy 2B: P- Crum 3, Adrian, Denny, Oh, Turley 3B: P- Denny SB: P- Turley 2, Adrian MONTROSE PARK -- Although California Moving had all of its players Saturday afternoon, in a sense, it was still short-handed, in a sense.

Edgar Melik-Stepanyan MONTROSE -- Money! Chad Nacapoy collected a whole lot of it Friday for his performance in a Little League District 16 Major Baseball All-Star Tournament contest. The 12-year-old catcher, who receives $20 per home run from parents Rob and Violet, hit three tape-measure blasts and drove in eight runs to lead Foothill to an 18-0 victory against the Jewish War Veterans in a second-chance bracket game at Montrose Park. The game was called in the fourth inning because of the 10-run mercy rule.

Vahan Shakhbandaryan The inaugural if-necessary title game Tuesday at Pacific Park left the Jewish War Veterans' team wondering where its offense went. Facing a tough opponent, JWV had trouble connecting with the ball, as Crescenta Valley rolled to a 12-0 victory. Coach Jeff Ward's 11-year-old District 16 All-Star champions sealed their win by mercy rule in the fifth inning, holding off all of JWV's advances. -- BOX SCORE -- -- Cres.

The MJB Flooring Ligers, coached by Dino Magallon, Mike Bako, and Max Dragovich, finished a remarkable season by capturing the 2005 13-year-old championship banner. They finished the regular season with a record of 8 wins and 2 losses. Both losses were against a very well coached Trojans team. In the first round of the playoffs, Bennet Koss hit a towering home run over the center field fence to lead MJB to a 9-0 victory over Home Sales. MJB and the Trojans faced each other in the semifinal game, and MJB came away victorious by a score of 11-0.

LANCASTER - A quick three-run lead was exactly what the members of the Crescenta Valley Major Baseball All-Star team wanted. Unfortunately for Crescenta Valley, it couldn't enjoy the advantage for too long. Crescenta Valley surrendered four home runs and suffered a 15-4 loss against host Quartz Hill in the Section 2 championship contest at El Dorado Park on Tuesday night. The game was called in the fourth inning because of the 10-run mercy rule. The teams will meet in the tournament's if-necessary championship game at 8 p.m. today at the same venue.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE - A pair of Crescenta Valley 10- and 11-year-old softball players mentioned after Saturday's Little League contest that they couldn't wait to smack the ball against the pitchers from the Vaquero/Jewel City-Jewish War Veterans squad. Peyton Marshall said she was impatient, and described teammate Brianna McReynolds as "feisty," at the plate and in the circle. But Marshall and McReynolds didn't get many opportunities to hit because they had to remain patient against two struggling pitchers.

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE - Sumner Hanula started it, Hannah Zika ended it and, in between, plenty of other Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy softball players joined in on the hit parade. It saw an early start that led to an early ending, as the Tologs trumped visiting Flintridge Prep, 13-3, in five innings in Thursday's nonleague affair. "They really hit the ball," said Tologs Coach Kirk Nishiyama, whose team pounded out 13 hits and improved to 2-1. "The difference was getting those three [runs]

GLENDALE — Down to its last out, the Crescenta Valley 10-11 Softball All-Star team looked for a spark. Trailing by a large deficit, Crescenta Valley wished to steer clear from having a perfect game thrown against it during an opening-round contest of the Section 2 Tournament against Quartz Hill on Saturday morning. Crescenta Valley thwarted Quartz Hills' perfect-game bid, though it suffered a 13-0 loss in a game called after four innings because of the 10-run mercy rule at Canyon Country Little League Field.

SOUTHWEST GLENDALE — There was no quit in the Glendale Dyrness Automotive little league baseball team, even after the Burbank Cubs jumped out to an eight-run lead in the first inning of a preliminary-round game of the Tri-City Major Baseball Tournament at Pacific Park on Saturday afternoon. The mercy rule was in effect, as the Cubs won the game easily, 13-3. Dyrness refused to go down without a fight, though, after being down by 10 runs going into the third inning. The win advanced the Cubs in the Tri-City Tournament and ended Dyrness' season, knocking them out of the tournament.

GLENDALE — The following are updates on area athletes at the collegiate level. Christian Bergman (St. Francis High, 2006) senior pitcher, UC Irvine baseball: The former All-Area Player of the Year has a scoreless inning streak of to 24 1/3 innings going, as Bergman (8-3) has lowered his earned-run average to 3.82 and has 74 strikeouts on the year. But Bergman's good fortune didn't play a part in his team's setback on Friday. The Anteaters began play in the Los Angeles Regional on Friday afternoon at UCLA.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — The Crescenta Valley High baseball team’s first hit of a fateful second inning on Wednesday night against visiting Burroughs at Stengel Field traveled about two feet from home plate. The last traveled nearly 400 and blew the Pacific League game wide open. Kyle Pomeroy’s three-run home run gave the Falcons an eight-run lead and capped a frustrating second inning for the Indians that set the wheels in motion for an 11-1 five inning Crescenta Valley win. The Falcons (18-5, 9-2 in league)

SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — Turns out a week didn’t make much difference with regards to Friday afternoon’s Pacific League rematch between the baseball teams from Crescenta Valley High and host Glendale. After scoring 10 unanswered runs to mercy-rule defeat the Nitros the previous Friday at Stengel Field, the Falcons had another solid all-around day, spearheaded by Troy Mulcahey’s two-hit complete game and three-for-three showing at the plate to force another fifth-inning stoppage, 12-1.

BURBANK — The baseball teams at Glendale High and Burbank took distinctively different approaches to their seasons prior to Pacific League play. The Bulldogs packed their schedule with nine nonleague games, including playing in a premier tournament in Arizona. In contrast, the Nitros didn’t play any nonleague contests and actually started their campaign last week with their league opener. The extra work looks to be paying dividends for Burbank, while Glendale is still trying to find itself.

SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — Oddly enough, Saturday’s nonleague game between the Glendale High and Flintridge Prep softball teams started without CIF umpires. By the time the first inning finished, the game couldn’t end fast enough for the Nitros. The Rebels scored six first-inning runs en route to defeating the host Nitros, 11-1, in a game that featured Rebel assistant coach Deanne Hammerli calling balls and strikes and Nitros assistant Greg Martin serving as the base umpire.