ANTHEM, Ariz. – The championship game in the National Division at this week’s Coach Bob National Invitational Tournament featured a team from Oregon that had been at the event 11 times previously against an opponent from California that was making its first trip to the Arizona side of the Sonoran Desert.
On one afternoon, at least – and who knows how many times the outcome could be replicated – the rookie toppled the veteran.
The John Burroughs High School Indians out of Burbank, Calif., pushed across three runs in the top-half of the first, fifth and sixth innings, and got just enough effective pitching and defense to down the Lake Oswego (Ore.) Lakers, 9-2, in the title tilt. The game was played late Thursday afternoon on the neatly manicured varsity field at Boulder Creek High School.
The Indians outscored their four opponents over the last four days by a combined 35-12 to improve their overall season record to 10-3 as they head back home to begin CIF Southern Section play in the Pacific Baseball League.
“It’s huge being able to sweep this tournament,” Indians’ starting and winning pitcher Danny Bustos said at the conclusion of the game. “Being able to go 4-0 is definitely big going into league (play).”
Burroughs’ wins over the last four days came against host school Boulder Creek, 10-2; Sheldon High School from Eugene, Ore., 6-0; and Key West (Fla.) High School, 10-8, before Thursday’s win over Lake Oswego.
“We came down to basically play some games before our league schedule started, just to make sure we got tuned up a little bit,” Burroughs head coach Craig Sherwood said. “I’ve always enjoyed playing teams from different states to watch different styles of baseball. I didn’t really expect to do as well as (we did) but I’ll take the results we’re getting.”
The Indians plated their nine runs on eight hits, and two of those runs were unearned due to three Lake Oswego errors. The offensive attack was led by senior second baseman Max Haddad, who doubled twice, drove in four runs and scored once; senior outfielder Max DeAmicis, who was 3-for-3 with a double and two RBI; and senior outfielder and leadoff hitter Aidan Anding, who singled, walked twice, stole three bases and scored three runs.
“It means a lot just coming here and playing our game,” DeAmicis said. “We scored very well in all of our games, pitched well, played some small-ball. We put a lot of pressure on all the teams we played by scoring so many runs.
“It was a great experience here, just the atmosphere,” he added. “The field we played on here (at Boulder Creek) was real nice. It’s a great tournament and we got some great wins.”
Bustos, a senior right-hander, pitched five shutout innings that bordered on perilous at times, considering he gave up eight hits and his defense made a couple of errors behind him. But that same defense also threw out a Laker runner at the plate and turned a timely double-play, and Bustos helped himself the most by not walking a batter.
“Early in the game I got good run support so I just really tried to bare-down and get ground balls, help my team win and put up zeroes every inning,” Bustos said. “I pride myself on throwing three pitches for strikes and in this game every pitch was working.”
The Lakers (4-2 overall this season) finished with nine hits but couldn’t push a runner across the plate until they scored two unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh. They were hurt by five walks and three errors and their inability to get a timely hit when one was most needed; they left 10 runners on base.
Senior second baseman/right-hander Oscar Stout had four singles and scored a run, and also pitched five innings in relief for the Lakers; senior infielder/right-hander Mitchell Verburg was 3-for-4 with a double.
In its three games before Thursday’s contest, Lake Oswego beat Piedra Vista High School from Farmington, N.M., 4-1; Bentonville (Ark.) High School, 6-5; and Westview High School from Portland, Ore., 10-6.
In separate pregame conversations, Burrough’s Sherwood and Lake Oswego head coach Jake Anders used strikingly similar language to describe their teams.
“Our kids are proving to be a tight-knit group,” Anders said. “We really don’t have any superstars – we have Mitchell Verburg who is well-known in our state – so with that part of it, we came into this deal … asking to get the toughest competition that we can get down here and kind of give us a test to see where we’re at.
“Right now, the biggest part of where we’re at is that our kids are having a blast playing together and that’s the most important thing.”
As if on-cue, Sherwood had this to offer:
“We don’t have the MVP,” he said. “We don’t have the star pitcher, we don’t have the star hitter or the star fielder; we have a group of guys that all like each other, they play well together and they pull for each other. It’s what the ‘team’ concept is all about, and I’m extremely happy with how they interact with each other and how they come ready to play.”
This marked the 12th year Anders – who has been at Lake Oswego for 17 years – has brought the Lakers to the Coach Bob National Invite, which dates back to before the event was called the Coach Bob National Invite. In fact, Lake Oswego HS was one of the original eight teams to play in the event all those years ago.
“There is a real strong Oregon-Arizona connection here because there are a lot of coaches from Oregon that have transplanted themselves here to the state of Arizona and they’ve been extremely hospitable to us,” Anders said. “With Perfect Game involved now it’s kind of blown up, and when you see the number of teams and the quality of teams here, it’s a pretty darn good showcase.
“It’s one of those things where you wish you could play a lot more games but we’re under a game restriction, and it’s one of those things where there’s not one of our kids that graduates through our program that doesn’t say the trip to Arizona is not their favorite memory.”
This is Sherwood’s third go around as head coach at Burroughs, his high school alma mater. He was there for a while in the 1980s, returned for six year in the 1990s and then came back again just last year.
“At this time in my life I thought it was good to come back and help reestablish the program and help lift it up from where it kind of was at and put it in a positive direction for the kids,” he said before adding that participating in the Coach Bob National Invite fit right into his plan.
“I think this has been a very positive experience for our team,” he said. “I’m extremely happy with their attitudes, their work habits; how they’ve interacted with each other. This is what it’s all about. It’s a team-bonding trip and all we have is each other so let’s go out and take care of each other.”