Baseball: CV Outlasts West Torrance to Win Babe Herman Tournament

Elliott Surrey isn’t the biggest or strongest player on the Crescenta Valley baseball team, but Wednesday night the 5-foot-11 junior was the most valuable.

Surrey got the job done in the field, on the mound and at the plate as the Falcons outlasted West Torrance 1-0 in eight innings to win the 45th annual Babe Herman Tournament.

“Eliott did a great job,” CV coach Phil Torres said. “This is one of those quiet guys that just works hard all the time and never messes around.”

Surrey’s right field single in the eighth inning drove in Tyler Pollak for the lone run of the game.

The left hander took over for starter Troy Mulcahey with a runner on in the seventh inning and proceeded to retire six in a row with four strikeouts.

He also stopped West Torrance’s biggest offensive threat in the sixth inning while playing first base.

With two runners in scoring position, Surrey was able to pull down a line drive by the Warriors’ John Palmer that seemed almost certain to go into right field.

“At the plate I just wanted to get a pitch that I could drive and get on base,” Surrey said. “Pitching I just wanted to get a W for the team. I was trying to stay loose out there.

(The line drive) was actually in the lights.”

Crescenta Valley (13-1), ranked No. 8 in the CIF-Southern Section Division 2 poll, won the Babe Herman tournament for the eighth time and the first time since 2005.

The victory certainly did not come easy as West Torrance pitcher Daniel Timmerman went the distance allowing just six hits and striking out 10 in 7 1-3 innings. The Warriors fell to 7-8-1 with the loss.

“West Torrance is a great program history wise,” Torres said. “They do a great job over there. I knew they had their number one guy. Usually everybody does now because he pitched on Friday. The ball moved all over the place and he had a really good change up. He’s one of the best guys we’ve seen all year.”

Falcon starter Troy Mulcahey was also very impressive. He went six innings, allowing just four singles and striking out four.

“Honestly before the game our defense came up to me and said this championship is in on us and on you,” Mulcahey said. “They said we’ll make the plays and get your back and that’s what they did. We had one error and it was on a fluke. Our defense was doing well. I just needed to throw strikes.”

The Falcons threatened to win the game in the bottom of the seventh inning, putting two runners on with one out.

But Timmerman battled out of the jam by getting Kyle Pomeroy to ground into a fielder’s choice and Cameron Silva to ground out.