Baseball: Harvard-Westlake discovers new pitching star
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A year ago, Harvard-Westlake had two future first-round draft picks in Lucas Giolito and Max Fried.
Now the Wolverines are searching for a potential ace, and one of the candidates is rarely used 6-foot-3 right-hander Conor Cuse.
He made an appearance on varsity as a freshman, then spent his sophomore and junior seasons on junior varsity because of control problems. In recent months, he has made such dramatic improvement that Coach Matt LaCour considers Cuse to be a candidate for the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the rotation.
‘He has really figured it out in the last four months,’ LaCour said.
On Saturday in a winter game against Riverside North, Cuse struck out three in two scoreless innings. He also walked three, but he showed good velocity and will certainly join Jack Flaherty and Hans Hansen in giving the Wolverines three solid pitchers this spring.
He has 4.15 grade-point average, which has intrigued colleges. And his father is Carlton Cuse, who was executive producer for the TV series, ‘Lost.’
-- Eric Sondheimer