Mavs sweep 'Hawks from playoffs for second time

Brad Penny struck out 10 Lancaster batters as High Desert swept the JetHawks out of the playoff for the second straight year

Penny, who was the Arizona Diamondbacks' fifth-round selection in the 1996 June Draft, stifled the most potent offensive attack in the Cal League for six innings Wednesday night in Game 2 of the best-of-3 first-round series between the two teams.

That performance was exactly what the Mavericks needed to claim a series-clinching 8-4 victory over the JetHawks before 1,785 at Maverick Stadium.

"Everyone in this room is disappointed that we're not moving on," JetHawks manager Rick Burleson said. "But High Desert is a good club. . . They played two excellent games against us."

High Desert eliminated its neighbor from the west for the second consecutive season. The Mavericks move on to face San Jose in a best-of-5 second-round series, which begins Friday in San Jose.

"I think they have to believe that we're a good team," Burleson said.

If the Mavericks continue to get pitching performances like they saw out of Penny Wednesday night, the Giants will have their work cut out for them.

"Brad Penny pitched really well (Wednesday night)," Burleson said. "When we got to their bullpen we scored a couple of runs, but they have some very good starting pitching on that team."

Penny, the league's regular-season leader in both wins and strikeouts opened the game by striking out the first three batters he faced, and ended up sitting down 10 of the 24 JetHawks he faced during his six innings.

During that same streak, Penny, who was named the Cal League Most Valuable Player this year, allowed only four hits and three walks.

In his five regular-season showdowns, the native of Broken Arrow, Okla., went 1-2. But the record doesn't reflect the way he pitched as he allowed only 14 runs during 31 1/3 innings of work during those five games.

His best performance against Lancaster certainly was his previous start, where shut out the JetHawks for six innings on only three hits and three walks while striking out seven. But Penny did not figure into the decision, as Lancaster rallied for eight runs in the final two innings to steal an 8-7 victory.

Penny, however, was able to come away from Wednesday's game with the victory. More importantly for High Desert, it will give the Mavericks a day off before they travel to San Jose.

The only inning Penny struggled in was the second, when he walked the first two batters he faced. Matt Sachse followed with an RBI double that scored Jayson Bass from second. Jason Regan also scored on a groundout by Anton French to give the JetHawks a 2-0 lead.

The Mavericks cut the lead in half in the bottom half of the inning, when Julius Matos' two-out single drove in Jamie Gann from third base.

High Desert took the lead, 3-2, in the third on Rod Barajas' tworun home run off starter Joel Pineiro, who lost his first game as a JetHawk. Barajas, who finished one home run behind Rancho Cucamonga's A.J. Johnson and Bakersfield's Tim Flaherty in the Cal League with 23, hit three home runs against the JetHawks in an April 7 victory.

The Mavericks added two runs in the fourth thanks to RBI singles by Kevin Sweeney and Jarrod Patterson.

But Lancaster, which has shown an ability to battle back during the last three weeks, trimmed the lead to 5-4 with two runs on three hits off Ben Norris, who came on to relieve Penny in the top of the seventh.

"There's no question that this team fought hard to get to the playoffs," Burleson said. "By no means was this team satisfied. We played in two dog fights."

The Mavericks added three runs in the bottom eighth to secure the victory. Kevin Clark had the big hit with a two-out single that scored two runs.