CHAMPIONSHIP: MISTAKES FATAL AS SAN FERNANDO PLAYS GIVEAWAY BANNING 4, SAN FERNANDO 0.

Byline: Rich Hammond  Staff Writer

A baseball team that totals as many errors as hits shouldn't expect to win a playoff game, especially not against one of the top pitchers in the City Section.

San Fernando High committed two costly errors and struck out 11 times against Banning pitcher Rafael Sixtos in a 4-0 loss in the quarterfinals of the City Section championship-bracket playoffs Tuesday at Banning High in Wilmington.

Jess Moreno (6-3), the Tigers' starting pitcher, allowed three hits in four innings, and three of the four runs he allowed were unearned. Fourth-seeded Banning (22-11) advances to play top-seeded Chatsworth in Thursday's semifinals.

``We played a little tight,'' said San Fernando coach Armando Gomez, whose fifth-seeded Tigers finished 24-8.

``We knew going in that we had to play without making mistakes, and we made two mistakes and that's how they got their runs.''

The big blow came in the fifth, with San Fernando trailing 2-0. The Tigers seemed to have avoided trouble when Banning's Aaron Martinez, who led off with a double that chased Moreno from the game, was forced at third on a fielder's-choice groundout by John Mendez.

With two outs, however, Mendez moved to second on a wild pitch and Tony Leon walked. The next batter, cleanup hitter Adrian Chavez, lifted a fly ball to right. San Fernando's John Sandoval chased it down, but the ball glanced off his glove and both runners scored.

The first error came in the second inning, when Banning's Pablo Villicana laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt. Moreno's ofalance throw went wide of first base, and the runners moved to second and third. Albert Morales followed with a two-run double.

That was more than enough for Sixtos (12-2), who the Tigers (24-8) didn't see when they beat the Pilots 8-0 in their first game of the season.

Sixtos allowed only a second-inning leadoff double to Aldo Montalvan, who the Tigers stranded at third, a seventh-inning leadoff single to Danny Salazar, who was caught stealing to end the game, and two fourth-inning walks.

Banning got out of that jam when Salazar and Montalvan tried a double steal, and Sandoval lined out to Mendez at shortstop. Mendez then threw to second to double off Salazar.

``He's legit, he's right up there with (Kennedy High pitcher Adam) Geery,'' Gomez said of Sixtos. ``We swung at a lot of curveballs and that wasn't the plan. He threw more curves than he's thrown all year, because we scouted them pretty good.''

Gomez's scouting reports deceived him, because Banning coach John Gonzalez said Sixtos' lack of curveballs during the regular season was an attempt to save his arm for the playoffs.

Gonzalez wanted to save Sixtos for Chatsworth, but Banning's No. 2 pitcher, Juan Banuelos, injured his shoulder sliding into home plate last week.

``They had three hits and we had two, so it can't get much closer,'' Gomez said. ``I don't want to make excuses, but we're kind of bitter about the way the seedings came out. We shouldn't have been playing each other this early in the playoffs.''