Camarillo PONY baseball team advances to regionals
By Thomas Gase tgase@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers PERFECT POSITION- Daniel McCarthy, 14, of the Camarillo PONY All-Star team, prepares to field a ground ball during practice last Friday afternoon. The team begins regional play on Saturday.

Thanks to a stellar hitting performance by Mark Fitzgerald and a dominating pitching effort by Taylor Hansen, the Camarillo U14 All-Star PONY team beat Simi Valley 4-0 last week to win the sectional championship.

Camarillo's victory put the team in the regional tournament, which begins Saturday in Glendora. According to head coach Dean Drulias, it's the furthest a Camarillo PONY team has gone in recent memory.

"I heard somebody say it's been at least 20 years, but I can't confirm if it's been any longer," Drulias said. "This has been a great team all-around. If someone isn't playing that well on our team, somebody else will just rise to the occasion."

Taking center stage against Simi Valley in the championship game was Fitzgerald. The freshman from Cornerstone Christian School provided much of the offense in the win by clubbing two home runs. 

"I had a talk with coach Drulias and he told me to look fastball and adjust to a breaking ball later in the count," Fitzgerald said. "It helped because both home runs came on first-pitch fastballs."

With Hansen on the mound, the two round-trippers would be more than enough. Hansen pitched a complete game shutout, giving up only six hits while striking out 10.

"He is a battler, and when there's a big game he's the type of guy that wants the ball in his hand," Drulias said. "He did a good job of finding a different pitch that would work for him in each particular inning. He had a lot of guts to throw the whole game against a very good Simi team."

Drulias said that besides Hansen, his team has had a lot of help on the mound from Aaron Roth. According to Roth, much of his success has come because of his coaches.

"Our coaches have called a great game when I've been on the mound," Roth said. "I'm very confident, and it doesn't matter what pitch I throw in a certain situation."

Drulias has worked with the majority of the boys on the team for the last five years and he said it's been a pleasure to see them improve their skills over time, especially in the last couple of weeks.

"When you first start off coaching an All-Star team, you never know just how good it's going to be," Drulias said.

"We started off a little slow by missing some signs, playing poor defense and not coming up with the big hit. But this team has done a great job of striving to get better, and lately every player on this team has performed well."

Although Drulias is glad the team will be advancing to Glendora this weekend, he said the time off between the last game and the regional tournament has Camarillo anxious to play again.

"In one respect, the time off has helped because we had a lot of arms tired and this was a good chance to rest them," Drulias said.

"On the other hand, by playing continually we keep everything fresh, especially our bats. To make sure our bats stay hot we have been doing a lot of hitting in practice lately. So we are prepared."