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Sports

Baseball: De La Salle Loses Thriller in Title Game

Spartans hold their own in grueling 15-team tournament.

James Logan 1, De La Salle 0

The Star: De La Salle starting pitcher Logan West, who threw a complete game and allowed no earned runs.

The Turning Point: A double error in the bottom of the sixth led to the lone run of the game.

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The Quote: “It’s better to lose a game like this than to get blown out,” West said.

What’s Next? Season over.

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Bottom Line: Logan took advantage of a couple of DLS errors in the bottom of the sixth to plate the game’s lone run.

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Section championship games usually come down to one or two key plays. That was the case in Monday’s North Coast Section Division IBasdball Championship at James Logan High.

Visiting De La Salle got a stellar pitching performance from USF-bound Logan West. The senior matched Logan starter Alex Martinez nearly pitch for pitch.

West’s complete-game, one-hit performance was one of the better ones this year.

What did No. 4 seeded De La Salle in was a double-error that led to the game’s lone run in the bottom of the sixth inning of a 1-0 loss to No. 2 Logan.

“This was a team loss,” West said. “We weren’t hitting. This was a tough luck kind of game.”

De La Salle (20-8) managed just one hit – a double by leadoff hitter Hunter Mercado-Hood in the top of the sixth inning.

He was one of just four batters to reach base for the Spartans.

Logan’s run came with two outs.

Cleanup hitter Pasucal Flores hit a towering flyball that fell in the middle of the third baseman, shortstop and left fielder down the left-field line.

Martinez was intentionally walked to put runners at first and second. And it looked like the Spartans were going to get out of the inning when a routine ground ball was hit up the middle that Brdar attempted to field. But the usually sure-handed junior bobbled the ball. And his backdoor attempt to get Flores at third base was wide and Flores scored.

“It’s better to lose a game like this than to get blown out,” said the 6-foot-4 right hander West.

The loss capped what could be called an improbable run for the Spartans. They entered the 15-team, single-elimination tournament on a two-game losing streak and had lost three of their last five.

But they played some of their best ball of the season in the tournament. They opened with an 8-3 win over Mission San Jose. They beat Granada for the second time this year in the quarterfinals, 7-3 and then posted the second win of the season over Heritage in the semis, 4-3.

De La Salle is two years removed from its last semifinal appearance. The Spartans didn’t qualify for the playoffs last year. Their last section title came in 2007, a 3-A East Bay crown.

“At the beginning of the season we were predicted to finish second to last and we finished second,” West said. “That’s not bad for a team that didn’t make the playoffs last year. We worked hard all season.”

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James Logan 1, De La Salle 0

De La Salle (20-8) 000 000 0 – 0 1 3

James Logan (24-4) 000 001 x – 1 1 0

De La Salle (ab-r-h) – Hood 3-0-1, Johnson 3-0-0, Kranson 1-0-0, Robinson 3-0-0, Brdar 3-0-0, Peters 3-0-0, Smoot 2-0-0, Herting 2-0-0, Freeman 1-0-0, Byers 1-0-0. Totals 22-0-1.

Logan – Puckett 2-0-0, Abeyta 3-0-0, Armstrong 3-0-0, Flores 3-1-1, Martinez 1-0-0, Johnson 2-0-0, Vallejo 2-0-0, Lamm 1-0-0, Yau 2-0-0. Totals 19-1-1.

Pitching

DLS – West (L) CG, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5 K.

Logan – Martinez (W) CG, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K.

Hitting

2B: Hood, Flores.

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