Short-Handed Agoura Loses To West Ranch

With just 11 players, Agoura High School's baseball team faced the undefeated West Ranch at Wednesday's Valley Invitational Baseball League game.

Despite being undermanned, Agoura kept the game close for a while. But West Ranch scored five runs in the fifth inning and beat Agoura 9-1.

"We had two guys on the bench and both were pitchers," said Agoura shortstop Mark Seyler, adding that one of those pitchers started the game on Monday against Chaminade. "We only had one guy to put in the game."

Agoura starter Jordan Shulman held the dangerous West Ranch lineup in check for two innings and took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the third inning.

But West Ranch scored three runs in the third and took the lead in the game for good.

Seyler had produced that run for Agoura with a two-out single in the top of the third inning to drive in Brody Fehmel, who drew a two-out walk and stole second base to get in scoring position.

Seyler slapped a 2-2 pitch into right field to drive in the run after he heard one of the West Ranch coaches tell the left fielder to move into better position.

When the left fielder made his adjustment, Seyler said he was expecting an inside fastball. "I kind of used that to get the run in there," he said. "It was nice to have a lead for a little while. Hopefully we can be able to hold on to a lead like that."

West Ranch came back to score three runs in the bottom of the third.

Matt Blake started the inning by reaching on an error. Michael Alvarez drove in Blake with a single. Dakota Hernandez followed with an RBI double that scored Alvarez.

"The error hurt us," Shulman said. "We kind had the momentum going. If we had gotten that out, the inning would have gone different."

Agoura threatened to score in the fifth inning. Joe Bealer led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a ground out by Jack Quina. But Agoura could not bring Bealer home from third.

West Ranch then exploded for five runs in the fifth inning to take an 8-1 lead. J.C. Cloney and Blake each had two-run singles in the inning.

West Ranch (5-0) tacked on a run in the sixth inning when Ryan Keller knocked in Josh Heinz with a double.

Agoura (0-4) has scored only two runs in four games in the Valley Invitational Baseball League. "We've had a tough time scoring runs in the past few games," Shulman said.

Agoura's next game is Friday at home against Golden Valley.