Conejo Angels Produce Heavenly Offense in Rout of Raiders
By Scot Sweet / PCBL Staff Writer

 It was back to Rancho Cucamonga and The Epicenter; home of the minor league Quake's; for this year's PCBL Summer Season Championships. It was a clear, hot day at this stunning baseball stadium for the second game of our championship triple-header.
 
This was the AA Division Championship between the #4 seeded Conejo Angels (12-7) versus the #3 seeded SCV Raiders (13-5). The SCV Raiders return to this AA Division Championship after losing last years title to a tough Platoon squad. Before that, they claimed the title of 2006 Fall A Division Champions by beating the always competative Royals. The Conejo Angels' last trip to the Championships resulted in them becoming the 2004 A Division Champions as they defeated the Phillies.
 
The Angels would jump out front quickly in this contest. They tallied 4 runs in the top of the 1st inning; courtesy of back to back walks, a single by Chad Olsen and a 2-run single by Carlos Casillas. The Raiders responded with 2 runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning, but hopes of getting into this game would quickly diminish as the Angels would quickly respond with a monster 9-run inning in the top of the 3rd.
 
The Angels sent everyone to the plate in the inning; accumulating the runs by way of 2 hit batters to lead things off, a single by Carlos Casillas, a 2-run double by Mike O'Neal, an RBI triple by Billy Lockin and an RBI single by Charlie Hirsh. With the Raiders failing to score in the bottom of the inning, the Angels found themselves up by a huge margin through only 3 innings of play, up 13-2. The Angels would continue to seal victory in the next 3 innings; scoring 5 in the 4th, 2 in the 5th and yet 4 more in the 6th inning. Through 5 1/2 innings of play, we were already looking to the next championship as the Angels had racked up 24 runs to the offenseless Raiders by a score of 24-2.
 
The Raiders would manage a pair of runs in both the 6th and 7th innings; but even they realized at that point that it was far too little and fare too late to expect to get back in this contest. The Angels had added 3 runs in the top of the 7th inning for good measure; and once the Raiders closed out the bottom of the 7th with their last 2 runs, they decided to call it a day. The game would be called at the end of 7 complete innings and the Angels would win this one easily; routing the Raiders by a final score of 27-6.
 
Congratulations to the 2008 PCBL AA Division Champion Conejo Angels for such a dominant victory in this years championship! And congratulations also goes out to an SCV Raiders squad who made it to the championships after a strong season and I'm sure will be back. It just wasn't their day from the very beginning.
 
 
Game Stats:                  R  H  E
Angels    4 0 9 5 2 4 3   27 22 1
Raiders   0 2 0 0 0 2 2    6 14 4
 
Game MVP:
The collective bats of the Conejo Angels .... here were the standouts of the afternoon:
 
Chad Olsen (single, double, grand slam homer, 4 RBI's)
Kelvin Parker (single, double, triple, 3 RBI's)
Robert Hirsh (2 singles, double, 3 RBI's)
Charlie Hirsh (single, double, 3 RBI's)
Carlos Casillas (4 singles, 4 RBI's)
Mike O'neal (single, 2 doubles, 2 RBI's)
 
Game Time: 2:55PM - 5:35PM (2 Hours, 40 Minutes)

 
Umpires:  (1st Base) Chris Chegwin
               (2nd Base) Ralph Peck
                (3rd Base) Mike Sutherland
             (Home Plate) Andrew Marquez
 
Pitching Stats:
(WP) Curt Ruther (Angels)
7 inning complete game (allowed 6 runs on 14 hits, walked 0, 2 K's)
 

A special thanks to the crew:
PA Announcer: Mike Gulato
Scorekeeper: Scot Sweet
Anthem Singer: Sherman Pore
Scoreboard: Matt Heersema
Facilities Mgr: Jonathan Mercier