ENCINO — Crespi baseball was able Wednesday to take back sole possession of first place in the Mission League with an emphatic 12-1 victory over Harvard-Westlake.
Crespi (19-2 overall) improved to 12-2 in league, one game ahead of Harvard-Westlake (11-3 league), which had forced a first-place tie by beating the Celtics on Tuesday.
The teams will play a de facto Mission League championship game in the rubber match of the three-game series Friday afternoon at O’Malley Family Field.
“We talked about one game doesn’t define you, we lost a tough game yesterday,” Crespi coach Mike Glendenning said. “The way the boys responded today they were real hungry and it showed early.”
Crespi jumped out to a big lead early in the game when they put up eight runs in the bottom of the first to give them an 8-0 lead. Leadoff hitter and LSU commit Landon Hodge had a single to open the game and then also hit a two-run home run in the first for Crespi’s last hit of the inning.
“I just think, if we could do that every time we’ll be fine,” Hodge said. “The guys need to be aggressive and when we’re aggressive good things have happened for sure.”
Gavin Huff hit a three-run double in the first inning for Crespi and Krystan Bell hit a double to drive in Huff. Julian Weiss and Troy Miller had back-to-back, bases-loaded walks to bring in runs in the first inning for Crespi.
Starting pitcher and UC Santa Barbara commit Tyler Walton had a strong outing for the Celts, going six innings with three strikeouts and only one run allowed on five hits.
Crespi scored three more runs in the fourth inning when Miller hit a two-run double and Huff hit his second double of the game to drive in Miller.
Huff finished the game with four RBIs and Miller had three.
“I was able to get a lot of first-pitch outs,” Walton said, “first pitch strikes too and was able to keep my pitch count low. I couldn’t be more proud of the boys for what they were able to do today.”
Crespi’s 12th and final run of the game came on an RBI single from Mikey Martinez in the fifth to score Hodge.
The lone run for Harvard-Westlake (17-8) came when Cade Goldstein hit a triple in the fifth inning and the next batter, Miguel Villegas, drove him in when he grounded out.
Hodge finished the game 3 for 5 with two RBIs and three runs scored, and the right fielder Bell went 2 for 4 with one RBI.