<\/p>\n
For almost all of the season, the Lakewood Lancers have had the kind of offense that non-purists love\u2014big bats, high scores, and heads-up base-running. <\/span>But the juggernaut attack (which averaged 8.5 runs per game and scored in the double digits 15 times) came screeching to a halt against Mater Dei, thanks to a 6-inning shutout effort from Monarch sophomore Ty Moore, and the rest of his defense. <\/span>The Lancers fell 11-2 to end their season, failing to reach second base until the final inning, when Jeff Yamaguchi hit a solo home run in his last at-bat as a Lancer.<\/p>\n Granted, not much of anything went right for the local boys\u2014Yamaguchi started on the mound, and was hit hard, and the Lancers had three base-runners picked off. <\/span>“We haven’t had a bad game all year,” said Lakewood coach Spud O’Neil. <\/span>“We finally had one\u2014it just happened to be in the quarterfinals.” <\/span>Asked where the game ranked in terms of flat performances in his career, he shook his head, and said it was at the top. <\/span>“The baseball gods just weren’t in our favor.”<\/p>\n They did have their chances\u2014Lakewood got their leadoff hitter on in four of the first five innings, but they failed to reach second on a double play, a failed attempt to steal second, a pickoff at first after a failed bunt attempt, and another double play. <\/span>In other words, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.<\/p>\n The Monarchs offense got rolling in the bottom of the third, when Mater Dei scored two runs on Moore’s double. <\/span>They got another three in the bottom of the fourth on a double from Austin Monte and Derek Campbell’s triple. <\/span>All five of those runs came with two outs.<\/p>\n After the double play in the fifth squelched another Lakewood offensive opportunity, the wind seemed to entirely go out of the sails on defense, as the Monarchs scored 6 in the bottom of the inning, including a two-run homer by A.J. Roth. <\/span>Lakewood got their only offense in the top of the seventh, after Moore had been pulled. <\/span>Yamaguchi went down swinging\u2014and connecting\u2014with a solo homerun in his last at-bat as a Lancer, then Anthony Razo scored on a wild pitch. <\/span><\/p>\n Lakewood graduates a solid group of players\u2014Moore League Player of the Year Yamaguchi, Anthony Razo, Hunter Jones, and Joseph Bernal among others\u2014but also has plenty of talent coming back. <\/span>It was a wild ride for the Lancers this year, starting off red-hot at 11-0 and grabbing the number one ranking in the nation, before winning a battle against a scrappy pack of contenders for the Moore League crown.<\/p>\n “It was a great season,” O’Neil said. <\/span>“Except for today.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The powerhouse Lancers offense was shut down by Mater Dei sophomore Ty Moore, who kept them from reaching second base until the seventh inning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}