Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither are young baseball teams.
Los Alamitos, which has shown signs of growing pains in the early going of the 2010 season, had more of them on March 11, versus Kennedy in the Loara Tournament, the host Irish jumping out to an 8-0 lead after four innings.
The Griffins came roaring back, though, scoring seven runs in the last three innings and having the tying run at third with two out before taking the 8-7 loss to drop to 1-3 on the season.
Coach Aaron Moore said the concept of playing seven innings hasn’t quite set in with his charges yet.
“We need to play from the first pitch until the last out,” Moore said after the 2:31 contest. “We competed well for three innings today, which is a sign of a very young, inexperienced team.”
The Griffins outhit the Irish, 11-7, but continued to have problems stranding runners, leaving eight aboard in the game, six of those in scoring position. That started in the first inning as Brad Hartong reached second on an error but was stranded as Kennedy pitcher Alex Pearson struck out the next hitter, part of a nine-strikeout performance by Pearson.
Kennedy struck twice in the second, aided by an RBI single from Andy Peterson, twice in the third and four in the fourth, paced by a J.B. Aguirre infield single and a bases clearing error, off Griffin pitcher Kyle Ferramola, who walked seven Irish hitters before Sam Lorenzini came on in relief.
Down but not out, the Griffins started the comeback with a leadoff homer by Nick Vilter to start the fifth.
However, they could not seem to put it all together for a win in this game.
