Announcement
San Diego Union Tribune - By John Maffei
With seating for 300, there were more area scouts, crosscheckers, major league executives and player agents in the stands than fans. The attraction Tuesday at the fourth annual Boras Baseball Classic at JSerra High was La Costa Canyon outfielder Mickey Moniak and West Hills Chaminade outfielder Blake Rutherford. Both are amoung the top pro prospects in the country. Rutherford is ranked the thrid-best prospect in the nation - high school or college - by Baseball America. Moniak is 15th. Both have signed to play at UCLA. Both are projected as first-round draft picks in June. Both bat left and throw right. "This is the real deal," said one scout. The pair didn't disappoint as the 6-foot-3, 180 pound Moniak flied deep to right, deep to left and tripled. The 6-2, 190 pound Rutherford had three singles, but with the game on the line in the seventh inning and first base open LCC coach Justin Machado chose to walk Rutherford intentionally. The strategy paid off as the next batter made the final out of the inning and the Mavericks, ranked No. 2 in the San Diego Section, scored in the bottom of the seventh to pull out a 3-2 win.
With the victory the Mavericks (8-2) advance to the second round at 6pm today at JSerra. "No question you notice the scouts," said Moniak. "But you can't put added pressure on yourself. You have to play your game. Nine times out of 10, if you do that, it will work out. Baseball is a fun game. You can't worry about things you can't control. I can't control what the scouts think of me. What, i can control is my effort, my leadership. My main focus is this team and winning games."
LCC took a 2-1 lead into the top of the seventh, but Chaminade (5-4), randed No. 13 in the Southern Section by the L.A. Times, pushed across the tying run and had a runner on second with two outs with Rutherford coming to the plate. "I know the scouts were here to see him, but I'm trying to win a game," Machado said. "He had three hits already and all three were hit hard. He wasn't going to beat us." LCC pitcher Brendan Kawaja got the next batter to hit into a force play to end the inning. Marcus Alazard and Brandon Bay started the LCC seventh with singles. Griffin Teisher was safe when Alazard beat the force at third on Teisher's bunt. With Chaminade playing a five-man infield, and Moniak on deck, Gabe Willes dropped a flair into right field, scoring the game winner.
'We're lucky the umpires didn't call the infield-fly rule there," Machado said. "We beat a great team. Kawaja was outstanding. Ryan Orr threw out two runners stealing (including Rutherford) and Micky hit the ball hard three times. All these scouts are nothing new for our guys. They're at every practice, every intrasquad game. They line the fences at our home games. Still, it's nice to come up here and play well. San Diego teams don't get invited very often, so i'm glad we were able to represent our section."
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