CCS baseball roundup: Championship Saturday features 11-run comeback, bottom-seed champs and complete game

Welcome to a special edition of the Bay Area News Group (Mercury News & East Bay Times) prep roundup. The spring season is coming to an end with six CCS baseball finals Saturday. Find the best from all the action in Divisions I, II, III, IV, V and VI.

Division I: No. 3 Valley Christian 6, No. 1 Archbishop Mitty 5

Third-seeded Valley Christian held off a late rally by top-seeded Archbishop Mitty to claim its fourth straight CCS championship.

View Evan Webeck’s report and Karl Mondon’s photos here.

Division II: No. 8 Sequoia 11, No. 2 San Benito

The Sequoia Ravens apparently didn’t take kindly to being seeded eighth. Their 20-3 regular-season record was No. 1 among the eight D-II qualifiers.

Sequoia got revenge for the seeding slight, storming to a 9-2 lead after four innings and flying off with the D-II title Saturday against No. 2 seed San Benito (17-10).

“I’ve never been part of a team that was as good as this one,” Sequoia skipper Mike Doyle said.

JP Boyle continued his assault on opposing pitchers, going 3-for-3 with a homer, double, three RBI and three runs scored. In the semifinals against Leland, Boyle ended a scoreless tie with a two-run homer in the fifth that propelled Sequoia to a 5-2 triumph.

Other hitting stars for the Ravens (23-3) were Jack Lanham and Ben Singler with two RBI apiece, and Rocky Knuedler and Nick Swee, both with two hits.

Sequoia’s lineup consisted of nine seniors or juniors, and the experience paid off. The Ravens jumped to a 6-2 lead in the second, and a three-run fourth pretty much put the game out of reach. The closest San Benito got after that was 10-4 in the sixth.

Sequoia starting pitcher Dillon Goetz had to come out in the second inning when his shoulder tightened up, but Cole Kenyon took over and worked the final 5⅓ innings for the win. Goetz stayed in the game and was 1-for-4 at the plate with a run and an RBI. — Mike Lefkow

Division III: No. 6 Burlingame 10, No. 4 Los Altos 2

Burlingame’s season couldn’t have finished in any more appropriate fashion than for Max Alvira to get the final batter swinging, capping a complete-game performance and a senior season in which he posted eight wins and a 2.18 ERA in 10 starts.

“It feels like the whole year we’ve been waiting for this,” Alvira said, after he allowed two runs over seven innings in Burlingame’s 10-2 title win. “It’s nice to get a CCS win for this team. It hasn’t happened in a while, so it feels really good.”

Coach Shawn Scott took over the program a year after the Panthers won the Division II title in 2010. Since then, he said the program had been working toward this moment.

“Even getting to the postseason on the peninsula is tough,” Scott said. “It just means a lot getting here.”

Alvira fooled the Los Altos lineup for the final five innings after the teams traded runs in the first two frames. The Panthers broke the game open with four runs in the fifth inning, then added on with four more in the seventh. Burlingame’s 5-6-7 hitters, junior Dexter Quisol, senior Jacob Cilia and senior Jake Caprini, all finished with two hits and at least a run driven in.

Senior shortstop Aaron Parker tripled and scored in the first and homered in his next plate appearance, accounting for all of the Eagles’ runs. — Evan Webeck

Division IV: No. 6 Leigh 7, No. 1 Palma 2

The sixth-seeded Longhorns scored five unanswered runs to upset No. 1 Palma for the Division IV crown.

Both teams scored twice in the first, then Leigh scored what proved to be the winning run in the third. It stayed like that until the sixth, when the visitors added three more runs to make it 6-2.

Leigh finished the season with a 16-9 record and won its fourth CCS title, the last one in 2000. Palma ended the year at 12-8-1.

Division V: No. 8 Gilroy 5, No. 3 Pacific Grove 4 (10 innings)

Gilroy rallied from four runs down by scoring four times in the sixth to tie, then winning it with a run in the top of the 10th.

Despite entering the playoffs with a 2-7 record, the Mustangs knocked off top seed Soledad 6-5 and No. 5 seed The King’s Academy 4-2 to reach the finals.

Five of the eight entrants in Division V had sub-.500 records coming into the postseason. A sixth, Soledad, was 8-8-1.

Gilroy was menacing away from its home field, posting a 5-3 record on the road or in neutral stadiums. They were 0-4 at home.

Gilroy won its first CCS title in baseball. The four runs it scored in the sixth were more than Pacific Grove allowed in the first two games of the playoffs combined. — Mike Lefkow

Division VI: No. 3 Harker 16, No. 1 Stevenson 15

In what had to be the game of the day, Harker scored 11 runs in the top of the seventh, then held on to win. Winning pitcher Ian Williamson, who worked the final three innings, got the final out with a strikeout with the bases loaded.

Harker (20-6) trailed 14-5 when the wild seventh started. At one point, 12 straight Harker batters reached base. Coach Mike Delfino said all 11 runs crossed the plate after two were out.

Team co-captain Andrew Chavez hit a two-run double that put the Eagles ahead 15-14, but the inning was “mainly walks and singles,” Delfino said.

Mark Hu led Harker with four hits and four RBIs, including a two-run homer in the first. He had two hits in the 11th.

Harker’s other captain, Levi Sutton, had three hits and an RBI.

It was the first section baseball title for Harker, which opened in 1893 and is on its third name change.  — Mike Lefkow