{"id":329787,"date":"2026-05-23T21:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329787\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T21:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:51:11","slug":"verdugo-hills-claims-city-section-division-i-baseball-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329787\/","title":{"rendered":"Verdugo Hills claims City Section Division I baseball title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Verdugo Hills, the fourth-place finisher in the Valley Mission League with a 10-18 record entering the City Section Division I playoffs, completed a remarkable turnaround on Saturday, winning its fourth consecutive playoff game to take home the Division I title with a 3-1 victory over Taft at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>No one was picking the Dons in this one. They had used their two best pitchers in a 10-inning semifinal win over top-seeded Sylmar. But coach Angel Espindola had a plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got tricks up my sleeve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Velasquez threw a complete-game one-hitter while relying on his defense to make the routine plays and deal with six walks and only one strikeout. At the plate, the hero was first baseman Cutlor Fannon. He had an RBI double in the first inning and an RBI single in the seventh.<\/p>\n<p>But there was drama in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Toreadors\u2019 Victor Jara represented the tying run at the plate with two outs. He hit probably the hardest ball of the day to deep left field. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Moises Rodriguez of Verdugo Hills caught the final out in left for 3-1 win at Dodger Stadium to win Di City title. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2UNU6Xrxs1\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/2UNU6Xrxs1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 eric sondheimer (@latsondheimer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/latsondheimer\/status\/2058265677090468117?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 23, 2026<\/a>     <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe last one scared me,\u201d Velasquez said as he watched left fielder Moises Rodriguez stick out his glove running to catch it and start a victory celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez said he \u201cfelt all my emotions running through me\u201d as he chased down the fly ball. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was surreal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>            <img class=\"image\" alt=\"Verdugo Hills pitcher Anthony Velasquez threw a complete game in 3-1 win over Taft at Dodger Stadium.\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"941\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779573071_514_.jpeg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>         <\/p>\n<p>Verdugo Hills pitcher Anthony Velasquez threw a complete game in 3-1 win over Taft at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>(Craig Weston \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<p>Espindola\u2019s best coaching moment came in the bottom of the sixth inning. Taft drew consecutive walks from Velasquez with one out. Espindola went to the mound for a pitcher conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRelax,\u201d is what he told Velasquez.<\/p>\n<p>Then Taft hit into an inning-ending double play.<\/p>\n<p>Verdugo Hills\u2019 fielders more than handled the Dodger Stadium environment. Catcher Miguel Wong threw out a runner trying to steal second. Outfielders Rodriguez, Jack Iafrate and Jessie Olmos combined to catch seven fly balls. And third baseman D\u2019Angelo Duran and shortstop Ethan Sanchez were flawless on ground balls.<\/p>\n<p>As for what happened in the playoffs, Rodriguez said, \u201cWe changed our perspective to playing baseball instead of doing baseball. It was let\u2019s have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Verdugo Hills, the fourth-place finisher in the Valley Mission League with a 10-18 record entering the City Section&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[136876,136877,6129,136878,2139,136879,48,52,51,47,50,49,7755,10195,14830,6862,9621,136880,133426,8934,687],"class_list":["post-329787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anthony-velasquez","tag-baseball-title","tag-bottom","tag-city-section-division","tag-dodger-stadium","tag-espindola","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-one","tag-plate","tag-rodriguez","tag-seventh","tag-taft","tag-toreadors","tag-verdugo-hills","tag-victory","tag-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}