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26 | June 7, 2018 | Malibu surfside news sports malibusurfsidenews.com Baseball Sharks snap Garey’s 20-game win streak in CIF semifinals Ryan Flynn Freelance Reporter Chance Irons gets some fist bumps after making it home. After the biggest upset of the season, Malibu baseball is going somewhere it’s never been in school history: the CIF championship game. The game was to be held at 1 p.m. Friday, June 1, at Cal State Fullerton (see Page 27 for coverage). “It feels amazing,” senior catcher and pitcher Tyler Ray said, of the win. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for four years and it’s such a great feeling knowing that this dream has come true. I’m so proud of my team and how far we’ve come this season.” After an inspiring run through the CIF playoffs, including three wins and no runs allowed, Malibu faced its toughest test. The Garey High School Vikings, winners of 20 straight and the No. 1 overall seed in the bracket, awaited on their home turf in Pomona. It was a team with a lot of accolades and precisely zero of those seemed to matter to Malibu, who came away with a with a 6-4 victory to vault them to the championship round. Right from the start, Malibu brought the fight to the favored Vikings. In the top of the first inning, Senior Chance Irons worked a walk. Senior Jake Hughes followed with a single. The next batter popped out, allowing Irons to advance to third base. With two outs, junior Colter Barish singled, scoring Irons from third. Next up was Alec Morrison, who put the ball in play, allowing Hughes to score when the Garey infield committed a throwing error. Malibu ended the half inning up 2-0. Senior William Tamkin got the start at pitcher for Malibu, fresh off a 4-0 shutout victory against Sunny Hills the previous Friday afternoon. Garey seemed up to the task early. The first batter Tamkin faced hit a deep shot to left field for a single, and a run scored on a grounder two batters later, snapping Malibu’s scoreless streak in the postseason. They were able to stop the bleeding there, however, and were up 2-1 after one inning. In the second inning, Hughes hit an RBI single in the third to bat home Russell Kish and put Malibu up 3-1. This score would hold until the bottom of the fourth inning, when the Vikings had runners on second and third with one out. The next batter singled, scoring one, and forcing a tough throw home. Catcher Tyler Ray made the catch and the tag in a bang-bang play, and the Vikings runner who could have potentially tied the game was called out, to the chagrin of the home crowd. Tamkin’s pitching and the Sharks defense was solid all day. Malibu’s offense was opportunistic, scoring two more runs in top of the fifth inning on passed balls by the Garey pitchers. Up 6-2, Malibu needed just nine more outs to secure a spot in the championship game. It was easier said than done. With two outs, Tamkin found himself with men on first and third in the bottom of the fifth. After a chat The Sharks celebrate after beating Garey 6-4 to advance to the CIF championship game. Photos by Suzy Demeter/22nd Century Media with coach Billy Ashley, Tamkin delivered, forcing the next batter to fly out so that Malibu could exit the inning unscathed. In the sixth, he looked unhittable, forcing a strikeout and two fly outs. Malibu nearly broke the game open in the next half inning, loading the bases. A pair of strikeouts left the runners stranded, however, and Malibu entered the final half inning hoping the four-run cushion would be enough. Right away, this half inning felt different. Garey’s desperation was palpable, and the crowd got loud. Ray came in to get the final three outs in relief of Tamkin. The first batter he faced hit a single off of his first pitch, igniting the audience. The next batter hit a screamer just barely fair down the right field line for an RBI double. With no one out, the lead was slipping away. Then Ray found his mojo. He got the next two batters out, forcing a pop out and a ground out, the latter of which advanced the runner to third base. The next batter hit a ground ball to Tamkin, now playing first base, but he was unable to pull it in, and the Vikings runner scored. It was 6-4 now, two on and two out. Ray found himself behind 2-1 in the count and let the next pitch fly. It was a grounder to Irons, who tossed it to Tamkin at first, sealing the Sharks’ victory. “Honestly, I knew all along that we would get it done,” Ray said. “After the first hit, I wasn’t too concerned. It was just a single. The crowd was going crazy, which actually got me hyped up because I knew I was about to shut them down. I trusted my defense and threw strikes and we finished the job.” Malibu’s final opponent will be Temple City, a Rio Hondo League school that went 17-10 in the regular season and is currently riding a six-game winning streak. They were ranked ninth of the 32 CIF playoff teams at the outset of the tournament. “We just have to treat it like any other game,” Ray said. “Go out, play hard, and most importantly, have fun.” Sports Briefs New youth cheer squad announced Angie Hansberry, who has led a youth cheerleading squad at Juan Cabrillo Elementary since 2016, plans to launch a team for ages 7-17, which will be open to all of Malibu. The season will start in July and run through April, she said, with the practice location to be determined. Registration for the team opened on May 30, and the teams will close on July 9. For more information, email Malibuyouthcheer@ gmail.com. Sports Briefs are compiled by Editor Lauren Coughlin, lauren@malibusurfsidenews. com.
malibusurfsidenews.com sports Malibu surfside news | June 7, 2018 | 27 Malibu baseball runner-up in CIF title game Ryan Flynn Freelance Reporter The gut punch came in the fifth inning. After leading or holding a tie all game, the Sharks surrendered what would be the deciding go-ahead run. With only six outs left, it would have been easy for Malibu to pack it in and hang their heads. Senior Chance Irons took to the plate the next inning and worked a full count. He then began to foul off pitch after pitch. The at-bat lasted 13 pitches total and ended in an out, but it showed the resilience that served this team well throughout its historic CIF run. It is the reason this team cannot be counted out in the years to come. Malibu lost 4-2 to Temple City in the CIF Division 5 Championship game Saturday, June 2, in a contest that the Sharks controlled for four-and-a-half innings before a Rams comeback spelled doom. It was not the ending the Sharks would have wanted, but this was a special season. The championship game berth was the first in school history. “Both teams showed up,” Malibu coach Billy Ashley said. “We were prepared. This team was ready to play here today. This game was awesome to be a part of.” The title game was held at Goodwin Field at Cal State Fullerton. The matchup gave the Sharks and Rams the rare opportunity to play on a college field with a 3,500 seat capacity, unlike the high school baseball fields on which they have played all season. If there were jitters early, they went away quickly. “At the end of the day, it’s still baseball,” Irons said. “Once you get into the game, you forget about all the big hype.” Malibu lefty ace William Tamkin got the start at pitcher. He surrendered just three hits and one run in four innings of work. He was the starter in three of the four tournament wins Malibu had to get to the title game. “I think we all played really well, considering we haven’t been on a stage like this,” Tamkin said. “We just couldn’t get it done.” Tamkin also was the game’s first batter and led off the title game with a double. Malibu could not cash in, though, and the senior was left stranded. In the second inning, sophomore Alec Morrison hit a base hit ground ball through the gap in right. Center fielder Louie Thrall was next. He worked a full count and then hit the ball well to left. Morrison, who is easily one of the fastest players on the team, was able to score all the way from first and put his team up 1-0 early. It was a pitcher’s duel for the next few innings. Temple City pitcher Isaiah Isaac at one point had four consecutive strikeouts of Sharks batters, while Tamkin continued to fluster the Rams batters on the other end. The Rams tied things in the fourth. Two base hits put a runner on third, who scored on a sacrifice fly to deep left. Malibu answered in the Malibu’s Louie Thrall slides into home Saturday, June 2, for the Sharks second run in the CIF Division 5 Championship game. Photos by Suzy Demeter/22nd Century Media fifth inning in similar fashion, flying out to left with the bases loaded and allowing Thrall to tag and score from third. Malibu was up 2-1. In the bottom of the fifth, Ashley pulled Tamkin and put in senior Tanner Gottlieb, who was the team’s No. 2 pitcher all year and pitched well in the round of 16 win over Rim of the World. On June 2, the Rams batters were able to get to Gottlieb. The No. 9 hitter started the inning with a single, bringing up the top of the order. A two-RBI single and another RBI on a base hit up the middle gave the Rams a 4-2 lead they would never relinquish. Ashley said that the decision to pull Tamkin came down to a pitch count. “We had to change,” he said. “We were at our pitch limit, so he had to come out.” The final six Sharks batters were unable to make any noise, and the 4-2 score stuck. Malibu will lose many of its key contributors, several of which — including Irons and Tamkin — are going on to play college ball. But, these last two years were full of accomplishments unlike any seen in Sharks baseball history. Until last year, this team had never been to the CIF semifinals. Playing in Division 6, the Sharks made it there last season, but could not get over the hump. Ashley said that failure stuck with them and inspired them to come back Sharks starting pitcher William Tamkin gets ready to let one go toward the plate during the title game. Senior Chance Irons takes off after putting a ball in play. stronger this year. Malibu moved up to Division 5 this season and faced tougher competition, yet still was able to advance further. Ashley attributed his team’s success to the competitive drive that sustained them all season. “It’s them wanting it,” Ashley said. “It’s them taking vengeance out on the baseball after a year and putting us in this situation.”
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