Panthers open CCS baseball playoffs at home
By Dick Sparrer
"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
And no one appreciates that old saying more this week than the baseball players at Prospect High School.
Prospect, champs of the Santa Teresa Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League (BVAL), will open the Central Coast Section (CCS) Division II playoffs at home this week.
The Panthers, 19-6 for the year after posting an impressive 16-2 in league play, will host Burlingame (21-7) on May 16, 4 p.m., in a CCS first-round game. The winner will move into the quarter-final round on May 18, 10 a.m., at Santa Clara's Washington Park against the Half Moon Bay (16-10)-Santa Cruz (21-7) first-round winner.
Prospect closed out the regular season in impressive fashion, posting back-to-back wins over Piedmont Hills and Overfelt.
The Panthers gave up just four hits and Andrew Meade ran his mound record to 3-1 with an 8-4 win over Piedmont Hills last Friday.
Kevin McPeck singled and doubled in the win for Prospect, and Aaron Jacks and Steve Kong had two hits apiece. J.D. Mazzuca drove in two runs in the game.
The Panthers actually trailed 2-1 after three innings, but Prospect tied it with a run in the fourth, took the lead with two more in the fifth and ran away with it with four more in the sixth.
Prospect had opened the week with a 7-3 win over Overfelt. Jacks was the mound winner, pushing his record to 5-2. Mazzuca doubled twice in the win, and McPeck also had a double.
The Panthers trailed in this one, too, losing 2-0 after an inning. They tied it in the second and each team scored in the third to make it 3-3. But then the Panthers pulled away with two in the fourth and one each in the fifth and sixth.
Prospect has already clinched the division championship before heading into the final week of play. The only question that remained last week was which team would finish second in the Santa Teresa Division.
Mt. Pleasant, Del Mar and Pioneer were all alive in the race for second, but the Cardinals eliminated the Mustangs with a 6-1 win on Wednesday night.
Del Mar opened the week with an 8-2 win over Independence to enter the final game of the season trailing Mt. Pleasant by a single game when the Dons and Cardinals went head up on Friday.
Over in the Mt. Hamilton Division of the BVAL, Westmont finished up with a couple of tough losses to finish the year 2-16 in the division and 7-18 overall.
Mike Gorski and Mike Sato each doubled, but the Warriors lost a 7-6 heartbreaker to Leland on the final day of the season.
The Warriors had rallied for six in the third to take a 6-1 lead, but the Chargers came back with single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth, then unloaded for three in the seventh to win it.
It was a similar story earlier in the week. The Warriors were up 2-1 against Santa Teresa after an inning, but a three-run homer for the Saints in the third ended up as Westmont's undoing.
Mike Haynes had three hits for the Warriors.
Reed Dickert was stuck with the tough mound loss in his last start as a high school pitcher. Along with Dickert and Haynes, seniors playing their last game for the Warriors last week were Matt Mills, Ben Peterson, Brandon Rose and Jesse Boots.
Like Westmont, Saratoga finished the season with back-to-back losses last week, falling 11-8 to first-place Wilcox and 2-0 to Cupertino. The Falcons ended up with a 3-15 record in the De Anza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.
Seniors John Finnegan and Justin Oliver each doubled for the Falcons in the loss to the Chargers.
Wilcox scored in every inning, and at one point led 7-2 before the Falcons rallied for five in the top of the fifth to tie it 7-7. But the Chargers kept scoring to pull out the win.
Saratoga could manage just three hits in the loss to Cupertino to open the week. Single runs in the first and sixth were all the Pioneers needed for the win.
Along with Finnegan and Oliver, seniors playing their final game for the Falcons were Dave Forcier, Kyle Louderback, Chris Filip, Tyson Durm, Todd Ziegler, Michael Bryan, Andy Swanson, Scott Moran, Trevor Adams and Marc Muniz.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
