EMPIRE LEAGUE BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Pitchers Get in the Act as Esperanza Prevails

After scoring 82 runs in its past four games, Esperanza turned to its pitching staff Wednesday for a 5-0 victory over Katella in a battle of first-place teams in the Empire League.

Esperanza’s Ryan Filbeck allowed two hits in 6 1/3 innings and reliever Jeff Bowman retired the final two batters to earn a save.

Esperanza (20-2, 10-2 in league) scored four runs in the first inning off losing pitcher Corey Doll (6-3) and that was all Filbeck needed in gaining his second consecutive victory since transferring from El Toro.

The victory allowed the county’s top-ranked team to remain tied for first place with El Dorado, a 6-2 winner over Cypress, one game ahead of Katella.

Filbeck allowed only a pop-fly single by Doll that Esperanza second baseman David Newhan lost in the sun in the second inning and a clean single to Orlando Gonzalez before tiring in the seventh.

When Filbeck walked two consecutive batters, Coach Mike Curran replaced him with Bowman. No Esperanza starter has completed a game in the past three years.

“We pitch by committee,” Curran said. “The new kid on the block came through today. A two-hitter against Katella for first place is really nice.”

Actually, Bowman was heading for the mound to start the seventh when Curran was persuaded to allow Filbeck to try to finish the game.

“He had only thrown 75 pitches, so I told Ryan he could finish it,” Curran said. “He gives us a shot in the arm after we lost an all-CIF (Southern Section) pitcher in Shade Sommers with a broken hand for the season.”

Newhan led Esperanza’s offense with two hits and three stolen bases. Esperanza had four hits and took advantage of three Katella errors to get four runs in the first inning.

“We were a little nervous in the first,” Katella Coach Tim McMenamin said. “This was like a playoff game for us and our kids need that type of experience. We got down by four runs, and that made it tough on our hitters.”

The going could get tougher for Katella (14-8, 9-3) in its next three games. Katella will meet Esperanza in a rematch on Friday and then play a two-game series with El Dorado next week to finish league play.

In other league games:

El Dorado 6, Cypress 2--Tyson Dowdell (7-1) pitched the first four innings for the victory for host El Dorado (17-5, 10-2). Chris Barlow had three hits and an RBI and Eric Ayala had two hits and stole two bases for El Dorado. Cypress is 3-16, 2-10.

Loara 13, Los Alamitos 4--Jason Hart had three hits, including a double, and scored three runs for Loara (7-15, 2-10).