Chargers' Winning Streak Comes To An End

The Agoura High baseball team entered its Valley Invitational Baseball game on Wednesday against Sylmar brimming with confidence, having finally won a pair of games after opening the summer with losses in seven consecutive games.  

Unfortunately, the Chargers winnings ways came to an end.  

They battled from start to finish, but ultimately, the Spartans ended up prevailing by manufacturing a run in the bottom of the eighth inning to win, 4-3, and sent the suddenly hot Chargers back home with an extremely disappointing result.  

"All I ask is that my kids compete from the first pitch to the last one, and they did that throughout this game,'' Agoura coach Dennis Reitz said. "No one likes to lose, and if they tell you otherwise, they are flat out lying to you. That's the reality of the matter.''  

Sylmar (5-5) got on the board first, scoring a run in the bottom of the first inning. 

The Chargers (2-8), however, responded in the top of the third inning with two runs. Alex Battachayra had a base hit, and the next batter, Preston Rosemont delivered a double. Rosemont came around to score on an error by Frankie Figueroa.  

The Spartans answered in the bottom half of the third inning, scoring a run of their own to even up the score and regain momentum.  

Defense reigned through the middle innings. Both teams came up with clutch plays out in the field until the Sylmar offense finally broke through and scored again in the bottom of the fifth inning to take a one-run lead.  

Not to be outdone, Agoura tacked on another run in the sixth. Rosemont was hit by a pitch to open the inning. In an attempt to sacrifice, Mark Seyler bunted and ended up with a base hit as Rosemont moved to second base. Tyler Cohen followed with a single to load the bases.

Brody Fehmel grounded out to score Rosemont from third base, tying the score once again. But a third victory in a row wasn't meant to be for the Chargers, after Sylmar put an end to Agoura's recent good fortune with a run in the bottom of the eighth inning.  

"No excuses, it's on us, either you lose tough games like this and work through things or you hold your head down low, and that's something we just don't do around here,'' Reitz said. "We had some opportunities to win this game, but came up short. That's the way things work sometimes. Not much we can do about it now except for bounce back.''

Blake Sack started for Agoura and did his best to keep the Spartan off balance. He went three innings and struck out three while walking a pair of batters. Sack was replaced by Daniel Kolodin, who pitched well at times over the course of his four innings on the mound. But walking six batters proved hurt. On the bright side of things, he did strike out six Sylmar batters.