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Garfield ends a drought by upsetting Roosevelt


Garfield High School pitcher Oscar Preciado delivers one to the plate against Roosevelt. Preciado allowed six hits in 6 1/3 innings.








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By RON GUILD, Sports Editor 01.MAY.08

As the cliche goes, records mean nothing when East L.A. rivals Garfield and Roosevelt high schools go at it.

That was the case Monday at Belvedere Park where middle-of-the-pack Garfield upset first-place Roosevelt, 5-3 in an Eastern League baseball game.

It was a particularly important win for the Bulldogs (9-13, 7-6), who moved ahead of idle South East (15-10, 6-6) into fourth place by itself. Despite facing the league’s top pitcher, two-time All-City selection Martin Villanueva, Garfield strengthened its hopes for a City (likely Invitational Division) playoff berth.

In the process, they ended a personal 25-game losing streak to the Rough Riders (24-5-1, 12-1), who had their 44-game league winning streak snapped.

“This was a good win for the kids,” Garfield coach Ruben Torres said. “They’ve had our number over the years. We’ve had some close ones with them, but always seemed to come up short. We beat a good team today.”

“I feel like the monkey is off our backs,” Roosevelt coach Scott Pearson said. “We hadn’t lost to them in 24 or 25 games and that’s hard to do, especially against your arch-rivals. I don’t think there’s a better rivalry in the City.”

Taking advantage of Villanueva’s uncharacteristic wildness, timely hitting and clutch pitching, the Bulldogs were able to end the drought against their rivals.

Villanueva hit four batters, two during a four-run second inning. Garfield got only three hits in the inning, the big one being a two-run double by Fernando Naredo. Anthony Martinez had a scoring flyball and the other run scored on a hit batter with the bases loaded.

Winning pitcher Oscar Preciado’s sacrifice fly in the third led to a fifth run. Villanueva’s throwing error on a comebacker was critical.

“Martin was way off today,” Pearson. “It was very uncharacteristic of him. He’s always been accurate and has always been able to spot his off-speed stuff. Today, he didn’t throw hard and wasn’t accurate.”

Preciado, on the other hand, was relatively accurate. In 6 1/3 innings, he issued three walks and hit a batter, leading to two of the runs. But he twice induced rally-killing double plays.

Other than Eddie Almeda (2-for-2, RBI), Roosevelt batters didn’t give him much cause for concern until the seventh when a walk and single forced Torres to bring in Naredo, who struck out the two batters he faced to pick up the save.

“Hopefully, this springboards us to something good,” Torres said. “This is my third year here. Two years ago we made it to the Invitational semifinals and last year made it to the upper division and ran into Chatsworth. This year we’ve taken a step back because we’ve lost some kids to grades. We’re down to 11, but the thing is, they don’t give up.

“We’ve played a tough schedule, so our record doesn’t reflect how good this team is. Hopefully we can get some good wins down the stretch.”