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Connor Sunderland (left) and winning pitcher Kyle Kim after Fullerton’s win Tuesday. (Photo: OC Sports Zone, Tom Connolly).
Kyle Kim pitched six and two-thirds innings and Connor Sunderland homered to lead Fullerton to a 4-2 victory over Mar Vista of San Diego in an opening round game of the CIF Division IV Southern California Regionals Tuesday afternoon at Fullerton High.
The Indians (25-8) advance to the second round on Thursday at 4 p.m. to host Burroughs at Fullerton’s Amerige Park. Burroughs defeated Bakersfield 10-0 on Tuesday.
After yielding a homer and two runs in the first inning, Kim settled down and allowed only two hits until the seventh inning. With two outs in the top of the seventh, Kim gave up back-to-back singles Jordan Mahan and Trevor Rector.
Indians’ coach Shaun Hill then replaced Kim with reliever EJ Ayala, who retired Devon King to end the game and secure the Fullerton victory.
“I didn’t want to come out, but I had full trust in my bullpen,” said Kim, who improved his record to 4-1. “After I gave up a home run in the first inning, I just said ‘it’s one hit and we play seven innings, we have a long way to go. I knew I had to keep moving forward.’”
Hill said he wanted Kim to finish but relieving him was the right thing to do.
“Bringing in EJ (Ayala) was the right thing to do,” said Hill. “Kyle was cruising through the fourth, fifth and sixth innings but then I think his legs got tired. I was so impressed with our guys on how they didn’t panic when we got down 2-0 in the first inning. When they got back to the dugout, I didn’t see any panic in any of their eyes.”
Trailing 2-1 in the third inning, Sunderland crushed a two-run homer high over the right field wall – his sixth homer of the season – to give the Indians a 3-2 lead.
“I had two strikes on me and I was looking for a fastball and I knew it was gone when I hit it,” Sunderland said. “It felt good to help rally the team. It feels awesome to win and that we are still playing baseball.”
Zach Fany added an RBI sacrafice fly in the sixth inning to give the Indians an insurance run. Sebastian Fany led off the sixth with a single and was pinch run for by DJ Garcia. Garcia took second on a wild pitch and was sacrificed to third by George Papadatos, prior to Zach Fany’s sacrifice RBI fly.
Matt Kim had two hits, scored two runs and reached base three times for Fullerton. Mahan homered on the first pitch of the game for the Mariners (23-12).
–Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone
