Westlake baseball beats

By Wayne Harrison
wharrison@theacorn.com

The Westlake baseball team defeated Newbury Park, 8-5, in a game played at Newbury Park High School last week, improving to 3-2 in the competitive Marmonte League.

In the Warrior win, sophomore center fielder Randy Harmala was 2 for 2 including a grand slam; senior first baseman Michael Notaro was 3 for 4 with a home run and two runs batted in; and senior pitcher Garrett Cuneo threw five solid innings allowing one run on only one hit.

Second-year Warrior coach Josh Eby said any league win is a good one.

"We’re satisfied," Eby said. "We can play better. We always want to play a compete seven innings and shut someone down. But in our league—the Marmonte League—every team is going to come after you at some point and put some pressure on you."

Newbury Park battled back from an 8-1 deficit.

"We handled it just fine," Eby said. " (Newbury Park) scored a couple of runs, a couple of balls fell in, but it wasn’t like they were hitting the ball out of the yard."

Eby was a little disappointed that his team didn’t rally after Newbury Park scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth.

"I would have liked us to respond a little better—we came up and went one, two, three," said Eby. "But other than that, I thought we played a pretty complete game, all around. We hung in there."

The win over Newbury Park gave Westlake a 6-5 record overall.

"We’re starting to put it together," Eby said. "We started the season off slowly, but we won our last two games in league. We’re starting to get healthy."

Two years ago, four Marmonte League teams tied for first place. Eby expects that type of battle this season.

"It’s a very balanced league," he said, "10-4 or 9-5 might win league. It’s going to come down to the last game and I think there’s going to be three, four or five teams right there in it."

Eby said the key for the Warriors is pitching.

"If we get good solid pitching, we’re going to keep ourselves in every ball game," he said. "We’ll hit enough to win. If we get good solid pitching we’ll be all right."

The Warrior starters include Cuneo, Notaro and fellow seniors James Ball and Dan Oettinger.

"We’re going to get it done with five or six guys this year, not just one or two," said Eby. "Notaro’s our No. 1 pitcher but we have four, five, six guys that can do the job. We’re going to use two or three pitchers each game like we did today."

Joe Raleigh, a junior, Ball and Notaro pitched out of the bullpen against Newbury Park.

"In the past we’ve kind of gone with two or three horses," said Eby, who was an assistant coach under Chuck Berrington before becoming head last year. "But this year, we’re going to mix it up because we want to keep opposing teams off balance."

Offensively, Eby praised Notaro and senior outfielder David Adler—but added that the entire Warrior lineup is potent.

"Michael Notaro has gotten off to a great start," Eby said. "And David Adler—hitting in the two-hole for us today—has really stepped up for us. But with us, we can hit one through nine. It’s just a matter of having a good approach and always getting a good pitch to hit."

Eby added, "We have a lot of guys that can get the job done for us."