RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – There was a time when Santa Margarita’s baseball team could not beat Orange Lutheran.
That changed this season.
The Eagles beat visiting Orange Lutheran 5-1 Tuesday in a CIF Southern Section Division 1 semifinal.
They will play in the championship game against JSerra on Friday or Saturday at Blair Field in Long Beach.
It will be Santa Margarita’s fifth CIF-SS baseball final. The Eagles won titles in 2014 and ‘19.
JSerra advanced to the final with a 6-0 win over Corona on Tuesday to make it an all-Trinity League championship game.
The Eagles took an 18-game losing streak against Orange Lutheran into this season. Then Santa Margarita beat the Lancers three times in early March in the opening week of Trinity League play, on the way to going 14-1 in the league to take the championship.
Then came Tuesday.
Santa Margarita senior left-hander Sammy Cova pitched a complete game Tuesday. He gave up two hits, one of them an infield hit, walked one batter (in the seventh inning) and struck out five.
Senior shortstop Zach Fjelstad hit a two-run home run in the first inning to follow an RBI double by senior second baseman Blake Wilson. Blake Balsz led off the inning with a double and scored on Balsz’s double.
Santa Margarita scored twice in the bottom of the third. Logan de Groot was on third base and Luke Lavin on second when Wilson hit a ground ball to Orange Lutheran freshman second baseman Justin Lopez, who quickly threw to home to try to get de Groot, but the ball sailed just enough that Lancers freshman catcher Brady Murrietta could not quite handle it.
The ball went to the backstop and Lavin, who never stopped running, followed de Groot across the plate for a 5-0 lead.
That was more than was needed for Cova, who worked the inner and outer halves of the plate with archer-like accuracy all game.
“I just kind of pounded the zone with fastballs,” said Cova, an Oregon signee who improved to 7-1 and went into the game with a…
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