First published in the Feb. 24 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
The city of La Cañada Flintridge has been plagued with power outages over the past year, but that wasn’t the case for the La Cañada High School varsity baseball team, which opened the season last week with three big victories.
The Spartans played their first regular season game against Pasadena High and came away with an exciting 10-5 victory on Feb. 12. Timmy Park broke a 5-5 tie in the ninth inning with a grand slam, and Josh Proctor followed that with solo home run.
In total, La Cañada collected nine hits in the game, including a double from Ryan Kiessling. Park finished with four RBI, Alex Higa drove in in three and Adam Geller contributed two RBIs. Geller came on to close out the game in the bottom of the ninth and pitched a clean 1-2-3 inning.
The Spartans (3-0) followed that up with another impressive offensive display that resulted in an 11-5 victory over Alhambra last Friday.
Kiessling led the way with a three-run home run and Brandon Cho belted a solo homer. Higa blasted two doubles and scored three runs, and Proctor doubled and scored twice. Hayden Dancsecs knocked in three runs and Park scored three runs and collected two more RBIs for the Spartans. Mateo Gallegos came out of the bullpen in the seventh to snuff out a late Alhambra rally by getting three consecutive outs.
La Cañada extended its win streak to three by edging El Monte Mountain View, 8-7, on Tuesday. Park had two hits, including a double, and drove in two runs and Dancsecs also collected two hits along with a run and an RBI. Leon Chen scored twice, Cho and Proctor each drove in one run and Kasey Koehler and Kiessling each scored.
Mateo Gallegos started the game on the mound and allowed only two hits and one unearned run and struck out six in five innings of work.
The Spartans, managed by Carl Gschwender with help from assistant coaches Murph Proctor and Jason McCubbin, host Los Angeles Cathedral in a nonleague game today at 3:15 p.m. and and begin Rio Hondo league play at San Marino on March 3.
