AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL: W.H. WEST BEATS ITSELF WITH ERRORS.

Byline: Heather Gripp Staff Writer

HENDERSON, Nev. - First the Woodland Hills West American Legion baseball team couldn't catch a break. Then it couldn't catch the ball.

Ground balls taking bad hops and opposing outfielders making diving catches to deny hits hurt Woodland Hills, but nothing hurt as much as the seven errors the California state champion made in a 10-5 loss to Honolulu on Thursday in the opening round of the Western Regional playoffs at Community College of Southern Nevada.

After trailing most of the afternoon, Honolulu scored the deciding runs on four Woodland Hills errors in the eighth inning.

``We've never played like this,'' Woodland Hills catcher Jesse Michel said. ``Man, all those errors. Once you make one, it's another and another.''

Woodland Hills, composed of players from El Camino Real High, had six hits in the first inning and led 5-2 after three innings. But Honolulu pitchers Ryan Basco (9-0) and Harrison Kuoda held Woodland Hills (26-10) to three hits and no runs the rest of the game.

Woodland Hills fielders were kept busy all afternoon as Honolulu batters had no problem making contact against starter Blake Gailen.

A comebacker that took a bad hop off the mound and went into center field allowed the tying run to score in the seventh inning.

The fielding woes started an inning before when Jonathan Hee's grounder took a sharp bounce over Woodland Hills second baseman Tyler Slifer's head. An attempted sacrifice on the next play ended up putting runners on the corners as the throw to first was out of reach of fielders arriving late to cover the base. A potential double-play ball by the next batter produced a run as the throw to first went into the dugout.

The go-ahead run scored in the eighth on a rally that began with Slifer making a diving stop of a grounder up the middle by Troy Hanzawa but only to throw the ball away. A two-run double by Basco was the only solid hit of the inning.

``If you make more errors than you have hits, you can't expect to win,'' said Woodland Hills coach Billy Ramirez, whose team continues pool play tonight against Las Vegas.

``There's no excuses, we played like crap. I think this is as bad as it's been. I guess on the bright side, we can only get better - I hope.''

Woodland Hills' Eric Boranian and Chad Boyd both had three hits, including a double apiece. Sammy Donabedian added two hits, Christian Hariot had a two-run triple and Chris Scott doubled.

But Woodland Hills never got more than one hit an inning after the second inning.

``You've got to give credit to their pitcher, he did a good job,'' Ramirez said. ``But we weren't hitting like we should. Five runs through three innings, then we just started popping everything up. We weren't putting anything on the ground. There's no bad hops when you hit it in the air.''

Honolulu (23-1-1) managed 15 hits off Gailen and reliever Michael Fields (3-3).

--Boesch chooses Cal: Less than a week after having scouts rave about his left-handed power hitting at the prestigious Area Code Games, Harvard-Westlake of Studio City baseball player Brennan Boesch has made his college commitment. The first baseman/outfielder selected Cal over teams such as Miami, Stanford, UCLA and USC.

``Pac-10 baseball, you can't beat that,'' Boesch said.

Even before he was named the top hitter at last week's Area Code Games national showcase, Boesch received significant interest from several schools, but he said Cal had given him the most attention from the start and he liked the program's coaches.

``It's very relieving to have it over,'' he said.