TOHS powers its way into quarterfinals
Baseball team scores 17 runs in first two rounds of playoffs
By Stephen Dorman sdorman@theacorn.com

FLEXING THEIR MUSCLE- Thousand Oaks' Jett Bandy, center, celebrates with Kyle Jones, left, and Chris Hannick after hitting a home run in the fifth inning last week against Long Beach Poly.

Now that's an entrance.

The Thousand Oaks High baseball team began the postseason with a bang last Friday, blanking Long Beach Poly 11-0 in the opening round of the CIF-Southern Section Division I playoffs.

With the game already well in hand, the Lancer offense supplied the finishing fireworks in the bottom of the fifth inning when catcher Chris Hannick, third baseman Jett Bandy and second baseman Harrison Kain all hit long home runs over the left field wall.

"They're saying my ball went about 490 (feet), but I don't know about that because I didn't see it," said Hannick, who hit the first of the three round-trippers.

"It felt good off the bat. I got my pitch and put a good swing on it. I knew it was gone when I hit it."

Center fielder Kyle Jones scored three runs and shortstop Collin Lavoie added a pair of RBI for Thousand Oaks.

YOU'RE OUT!- Jett Bandy, left, applies the tag before Long Beach Poly's Eric Gonzalez can reach third base on an attempted steal.

"The boys showed up today," head coach Frank Mutz said. "The one thing that I liked was that they came out disciplined. The first two hitters didn't come out just swinging. They were looking for good pitches to hit. Obviously, they hit those pitches."

Pitchers Matt Bywater, Byron Minnich and Chad Smith combined for the shutout, allowing only one hit.

"If you look at our pitchers, we ran out our No. 1, our No. 3 and our No. 7 guys," Mutz said. "Our No. 7 was just as good, if not better, than our No. 1."

Because Bywater threw only 45 pitches against Long Beach Poly, he was able to start Tuesday's second-round game at Martin Luther King High, a 6-2 victory for Thousand Oaks.

Trailing 2-0 entering the top of the fourth inning against Martin Luther King, the Lancers scored three times to take the lead. The rally was sparked by an RBI double to right field by Jeff Johnson that plated Eric Yomantas.

Hannick led off the fifth inning with a solo home run, his second of the postseason, and Tom Hocutt doubled to left-center field to score Bandy, giving Thousand Oaks a 5-2 lead.

The Lancers tacked on their final run in the sixth inning.

Bywater pitched three innings to get the win. Smith threw three scoreless frames, and Matt Montgomery finished things off in the bottom of the seventh.

"That's what we're kind of trying to do throughout the playoffs, mix our pitchers in," Mutz said.

After losing a coin flip Wednesday morning, Thousand Oaks (25-4-1) will play at Esperanza (21-7) on Friday in Anaheim in the quarterfinal round. First pitch is slated for 3:15 p.m.