Struggling early in the season, Eastlake High School baseball coach Ramon Orozco told his team he wanted it to be playing its best baseball in May, not March.
“Every team is different. Every team comes together at its own pace,” Orozco said. “It took this team a little bit to come together, but it has found a nice groove.”
Tuesday, the Titans made it seven wins in the last eight games, edging Patrick Henry 4-3 in an Open Division semifinal.
A loss would have knocked seventh-seeded Eastlake (19-9-1) out of the playoffs.
Instead, the Titans return to Patrick Henry on Wednesday to play an elimination game against the sixth-seeded Patriots (20-9-2). The winner will play top-seeded Granite Hills on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at San Diego State for the Open Division championship.
Granite Hills beat St. Augustine 6-4 Tuesday to advance to the title game.
“We prepare for games like there, for big games,” said Eastlake senior left fielder Angel Laya, who had a pair of doubles, drove in a run and scored a run.
“The preparation we put in at the start of the season is paying off. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Eastlake led 4-0, and left-hander Nick Romero was in total command.
But Patrick Henry got a run back in the fifth when Cody Cappelletti doubled home Ian Brooke.
The Patriots got another in the sixth on an error, when Kalani Jauregui came in to relieve Romero. He got a strikeout with the bases loaded to end the inning.
The Patriots also left the bases loaded in the fourth inning.
Cappelletti nicked Jauregui with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the seventh, but Jauregui retired the next two batters with fly balls and struck out the final batter to end the game.
“I had a situation like this early in the playoffs against La Costa Canyon,” said Jauregui, who plays shortstop. “When you come in and have to get out of a jam, you flush everything that has happened before. You can’t be thinking about your last at-bat while you’re trying to get hitters out.
“It’s important to throw strikes, especially with the bases loaded. It’s important to trust the work you’ve put it. And it was important to flush Cappelletti’s homer, overcome that and get the last three outs. Things easily could have gone the other way if I had let that get to me.”
The game could have turned on a controversial call in the bottom of the first.
A Tyson Bobo single apparently scored Preston Conklin, but Cappelletti was thrown out at third on a heads-up play by Jauregui.
The umpire ruled that the out at third was recorded before the run had crossed the plate, but video of the play appeared to show otherwise.
In the end, Romero earned the win, working 5 2/3 innings and striking out 11.
Jimmy Gunn struck out 10 for Patrick Henry, including the side in the first inning and five of the first six hitters.
