Kolodin Strikes Out 10 in Chargers' Victory

Agoura High starter Daniel Kolodin was giving his catchers a workout Saturday morning in a Valley Invitational Baseball League game at Saugus.

The rest of the team, on the other hand, had it pretty easy.

Kolodin struck out 10 batters in five innings in Agoura's 3-1 win, their third win in a row and the sixth in the past seven games for the Chargers (8-9).

"He's got the dirtiest stuff I've seen," said Agoura third baseman Brody Fehmel. "It's easy, don't need to do nothing. He just pitches."

Kolodin was getting Saugus batters to chase curveballs and off-speed pitches in the dirt for strikeouts. But Agoura catcher Jack Quina dropped a couple of those third strikes in the dirt allowing Saugus batters to reach base.

Sam Gerald replaced Quina at catcher in the fourth inning and only had to deal with Kolodin's pitches in the dirt for two innings.

"My curveball and change-ups, I'm trying to throw them in the dirt," Kolodin said. "I like that they (catchers) put up with it."

Agoura came up with two clutch two-out hits and scored two runs in the fourth inning to break a 1-1 tie.

Kolodin and Tyler Cohen combined to give up only four hits and struck out 12 Saugus batters.

Kolodin pitched his way in and out of trouble through the first five innings of the game. Despite the high strikeout total, he walked three and hit a batter. On a positive note, he gave up only two hits.

"I was just trying to get ahead of hitters," said Kolodin, who admitted having trouble with his control. "It depends. I'll strike out a lot of guys, but I'm not trying to strike people out. I'm just trying to throw strikes."

One of those hits was to Justin Donatella in the second inning. He reached on a one-out single and came around to score later on a wild throw to first by Kolodin. Saugus (9-7) loaded the bases on two errors and a hit batsman, but Nick Lombardi grounded out to second to end the inning.

Kolodin struck out two batters in the inning. He struck out lead-off hitter Austin Rodriguez on a curveball in the dirt that Quina couldn't catch. Rodriguez reached first base on the error and kept the inning alive for Saugus.

Kolodin wiggled out of trouble again in the fifth inning. He walked the first two batters he faced to put Saugus runners on first and second with no outs. But he struck out Saugus clean-up hitter Chris Devery for the first out of the inning. After getting Dylan Freyre to fly out to right, he struck out Mark Kyle to end the threat and the inning.

Cohen came in to pitch the final two innings and had to work his way out of a seventh-inning jam to end the game. Saugus had runners on first and third with two outs, but Cohen got Freyre to ground out to second.

Agoura took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Fehmel. Cohen hit a two-out triple to right field and Fehmel delivered a clutch, two-out single to drive him in.

"I was just waiting for a good fastball to hit," Fehmel said. "It's always easy for me when I get a runner on third."

Quina came through with another two-out, RBI single in the fourth inning to give his team a 2-1 lead. Quina scored on an error to put Agoura up 3-1 before the inning was over.

"We needed it," Fehmel said about Quina's run-scoring single. "It gave us the lead."

Agoura's last game of the summer baseball league season is Monday against Hart.

Check out a photo slideshow of the Agoura vs. Granada Hills game on Friday here.