Baseball Out of Playoffs

Disappointing might be the word to best describe the Palisades High baseball team’s first-round City championship division playoff game last Friday at George Robert Field. On head coach Tom Seyler’s birthday, the sixth-seeded Dolphins battled hard throughout and had their chances, but came up short in a 5-3 loss to 11th-seeded San Fernando that ended Palisades’ season. ‘I thought both teams played pretty well,’ said PaliHi senior catcher Adam Franks, who was voted most valuable player in the Western League this season. ‘Maybe we looked past them a little, but honestly I think we were ready to play.’ Things began well for Pali when short stop Dylan Cohen hit a home run in the first inning, but by the time the Dolphins scored again they were behind 4-1 and strictly in comeback mode. ‘The [playoff] seedings are really misleading,’ Pali second baseman Matt Skolnik said. ‘We aren’t seven spots better than them, but because we won our league that’s the way the draw played out. I think if it was a three-game series we’d probably beat them but they played better today.’ Franks singled and scored on a triple by Alex Thompson in the fourth inning and Turhan Folse hit a solo home run in the sixth inning for Palisades (20-6). Geoff Schwartz pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning and scattered eight hits over 6 1/3 innings, but gave up a two-run home run to Chad Lewis that gave the Tigers (14-16-1) a three-run lead in the third inning. Pali was unable to solve junior left-hander Steven Pujol, who allowed four hits with six strikeouts in six innings for San Fernando (14-16-1). When Pujol tired, the Tigers brought in flame-throwing right-hander Matt Nevarez, who struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh inning. ‘This is a tough loss to take because we thought we would win and it turned out to be my last game,’ said Schwartz, who will play football at Oregon in the fall. ‘But this program is on the rise and the future looks good. Not only did varsity do well, but the JV went undefeated too, so the guys should have a great chance to win league again next year.’ Kevin Seto led the team with a .460 batting average, 29 hits and 24 runs scored while Cohen and David Bromberg each hit five home runs. Franks and Cohen led the club with 18 RBIs each. Bromberg was 6-0 with a 2.10 earned run average, Andrew Strassner was 6-0 with a 3.02 ERA and Schwartz finished 5-3 and led the squad with 51 strikeouts in 57 innings. ‘We accomplished all of our goals this season,’ Seyler said. ‘We won our league and we earned a spot in the upper bracket. The goal next year will be to do the same thing and to get further in the playoffs than we did this year. That’s what we’ll need to do to earn some respect for our league.’ Palisades last made the City’s upper division playoffs in 1998, when the Dolphins lost 3-2 to Sylmar in the first round.