Verdugo Dons baseball team has a big season ahead

The Verdugo High School baseball team is getting ready to hit it out of the park this season. The team set the school record for wins in a season. The Dons fought their way into the second round of the Los Angeles City Section Baseball Tournament Division 1. Last year’s baseball team ended with a win-loss ratio of 23-12 overall and 9-3 league. In the East Valley league standings, they had the best record overall and the second best in league. Of the 30 other high schools in the Los Angeles City Section Division I, they had the seventh best overall win-loss ratio at about 14 places higher than our rival, Francis Polytechnic Senior High School.

Most of the baseball team is returning, or has some prior experience on the team. Augie Lozano comes into his third and final year of baseball with a strong .354 batting average and .475 on base percentage over the span of 32 games. Grant Mona has impressive speed, especially with the 13 runs he scored since last year.

Dons baseball fans need not worry about getting bored this season with the games Verdugo has stacked up for its baseball team. The Verdugo baseball varsity and junior varsity schedules for February are nearly identical. The difference is that varsity will sneak an extra home game in on the 26th against Van Nuys as part of the Poly Classic Tournament. Whenever varsity plays home, junior varsity will play an away game (and visa-versa). The Verdugo baseball team had its first game of the season against the Granada Hills High School Highlanders, losing 4-1. Verdugo then took part in the Poly Classic Tournament where the Dons faced off against Garfield High School on at home, losing 3-2. The Dons also lost to San Pedro High School 9-5 at home. Varsity’s first away game of the season is against Cleveland on the Feb. 25. Verdugo will then take on Roosevelt High School on Feb. 28 in the Southern California Invitational tournament at East Los Angeles College.

-Edward Tatulian