ANAHEIM – Fullerton showed it can play long ball and little ball, and pitch pretty well, too, in a 3-2 nonleague baseball win Monday over Villa Park at Angel Stadium.
The afternoon game was part of the “Halo Classic At Angel Stadium” series of games at the Big A. The stadium has been the site of regular-season high school baseball games for several recent years, and has a long history of being a location for CIF Southern Section championship games.
Fullerton senior catcher Miguel Velasquez hit a solo home run in the first inning, junior right-handed starting pitcher Declan Fitzgerald went six innings and senior right fielder Wayne Warden bunted in a run for the Indians.
Fullerton, No. 13 in the Orange County rankings, is 6-2-1. No. 8 Villa Park is 6-3.
A light rain fell through the middle innings. The umpiring crew checked with stadium personnel to see if the game could continue, and it did. With Angels Opening Night less than three weeks away, it would be understandable if the game was halted to protect the field but it was decided to allow the game to proceed.
Velasquez, with two outs in the bottom of the first inning, launched the first pitch he saw over the left-field fence to put Fullerton on top 1-0.
He saw that Fullerton leadoff batter Zach Fany had flown out to left field on a fastball and was expecting the same pitch for himself from Villa Park starter Cade Cowle.
“I knew he was going to try to dominate and get ahead on the county,” Velasquez said. “I just tried to get the barrel of the bat on it and I was lucky enough that it went out.”
The Indians added two runs in the top of the fourth inning.
Velasquez walked to lead off the inning (he later would be intentionally walked twice), stole second base and on the steal advanced to third on a wild throw. Malachi Meni’s sharp single up the middle drove in Velasquez for a 2-0 lead. Meni went to second base on Christian Robinson’s base hit in the first base/second base hole, and Meni and Robinson advanced to third and second on Lazer Rojas’ sacrifice bunt for the inning’s first out.
Warden’s sacrifice bunt sent home Meni to make it 3-0.
Villa Park got its first run in the bottom of the fourth when Dominic Gutierrez singled and eventually scored on Shawn Romero’s ground out.
The Spartans scored their other run in the sixth inning. Gutierrez pulled a line drive into the right-field corner for a triple. He scored when Nate Lewis reached on an error.
Jake Nobles hit a two-out triple in the bottom of the seventh but was unable to score from there as Meni, having moved first base to pitcher, got the final two outs.
Fitzgerald, who committed to Arizona State, gave up three hits and one earned run, and struck out seven with no walks.
Villa Park coach Burt Call, who previously had coached baseball games at Angel Stadium, including a Villa Park regular-season game and a Mater Dei CIF-SS championship game victory and was a star player on the Capistrano Valley baseball team that won a CIF-SS championship game there in 1983, was impressed by Fullerton.
“That’s a very well-coached team,” Call said. “Their (pitcher-catcher) battery was really good. Those are top-tier guys.”