"Going up against a team that is ranked No. 9 in the nation and No. 1 in California, we knew it was going to take a miracle, kind of like [Kentucky Derby winner] Jockamo, to pull out a win," Leland coach Scot Gillis said.

"The scouting report told us that if you throw fast balls at Bellarmine, they will hit it 500 feet," he said. "Throwing curve balls and change-ups for strikes is the way to beat them."

"That's the pitcher John Foley was for us early in the season and we thought he was back in form, so our decision was to go with him," the coach added.

Foley was off and unable to hit his spots right out of the chute and Bellarmine jumped on the opportunity and bolted to a 3-0 lead after an inning. The Bells started right where they had left off as the second inning got under way and put up another three spot. Gillis brought in Danny Dyer with one out and he was able to put out the fire.

Dyer came through with a fine performance, shutting down the Bells for the final four innings and not allowing a runner to reach second base.

Even though the Bells had jumped to the early lead, Gillis had reason to hope that the Chargers would put some runs on the board by the way they were stinging the ball. In the first, Dyer led off the inning by crushing a line drive to deep left field but right at the left fielder for the first out. Both Lance Gemette and Kevin Battipede ripped hard ground balls that Bellarmine made excellent plays on to get the outs, but the Chargers were hitting the ball hard and putting it in play.

In the second, Matt Slaton lifted a fly ball out to right field. Then the Bells' third baseman made an outstanding catch on a sharp grounder off the bat of Andrew Kim between third and short as he dove to his knees to make the stop and nail Kim at first. But then the outs without hits began to pile up, and the Leland batters began to press a bit.

It wasn't until the top of the seventh that lady luck smiled on the Chargers. A walk, a stolen bass, a wild pitch and a passed ball added up to the Chargers' first score. The combination of another walk, stolen base and two throwing errors put run number two on the board. The third and final run came on a fielder's choice.

"One positive thing was that our defense was fantastic," Gillis said. "We had only one throwing error. We had no fielding errors and played solid defense the whole game."

It was a different story when the Chargers faced No. 8 Live Oak, champions of the Tri-County League, in a CCS opener earlier last week. Before the game even began, Leland was handed an advantage when Live Oak's best pitcher and No. 4 hitter broke his arm and was unavailable for action.

"Although Foley had been our top pitcher early in the season, we decided to go with Battipede based on what our pitchers had done during the final three weeks of the regular season," Gillis explained. "Battipede had thrown a complete game win in his last outing against Santa Teresa, which was the second game in a row that he had a strong outing."

"He produced and shut them down," the coach added. "Balls were hit well but our defense showed up and came through with a solid effort."

Battipede fired a complete game and fanned eight along the way to get the win and up his season mark to 3-1. Shaky defense has been a nemesis for the Chargers all year, but Gemette made sure that would not be the case against Live Oak.

The sophomore shortstop handled four routine ground balls flawlessly. In addition, he snagged one line drive with a fully extended dive, and then ranged far to his left to grab a grounder up the middle and take away another Live Oak hit.

Live Oak took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first but Leland came right back to tie it up on a RBI single up the middle by Steve Akerson in the top of the second.

The score remained knotted at 1-1 until the sixth when Slaton blasted his seventh round tripper of the year to put Leland on top 2-1.

The Chargers added an insurance run in the seventh inning when Gemette slapped a clutch based-loaded single to right field. Battipede sat the Acorns down in the last of the seventh to slam the door and preserve the 3-1 CCS win.

The game produced a solid defensive effort, evidence that an earlier problem may have been overcome, as well as a few timely hits. Both are items to point to as Gillis looks to next year with a group of players who started the season young and light on experience, but will return with much to build upon for 2006.