By Vincent Liu
Town Crier Correspondent
Prep Baseball Report
Jonathan Barsi’s dramatic walk-off home run propelled the St. Francis High baseball team to a 10-9 win over rival Bellarmine last Friday.
The game-winning shot, coming with no outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, delighted the overflow crowd at sun-drenched Higgins Field.
The win improved the Lancers’ overall record to 18-5 and evened their West Catholic Athletic League record at 3-3, keeping alive their chances for a favorable seed in the league playoffs.
With one swing of the bat, Barsi erased an afternoon of frustrations and squandered opportunities caused by a comedy of base-running errors. In all, seven Lancers were thrown out on the base path including three at home plate.
“We made enough mistakes to lose this game,” said a happy but flabbergasted St. Francis coach Chris Bradford. “It was ugly, but I’ll take it.”
Of all the base-running gaffes, none was more painful than the one made in the bottom of the third after Bellarmine took a 4-2 lead with a grand slam in the top of the inning.
With one run in, the bases loaded and no out, Barsi drove a high fly ball off the left center field fence.
The runner at third base scored easily, but the runner at second - thinking the ball might be caught - went back to second to tag up and could only advance to third.
Meanwhile, Barsi, running with his head down thinking of extra bases, steamed into second base only to find a teammate there and was tagged out.
The sting of the mental lapse was eased when Dan Descalso followed with a clutch single over third base to drive in two runs and put the Lancers ahead 6-4.
But the lead was short-lived. The Bells muscled up for two more homers in the top of the fourth to score three runs.
After the Lancers regained the lead at 9-7 with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth, starting pitcher Alex Perkins gave up a bloop single to open the top of the sixth inning. He was replaced by Rich Kosoglow, who promptly gave up two hits and a run. The second and tying run scored when St. Francis botched a potential double-play grounder and got one out.
Chris Myers was summoned to relieve Kosoglow and pitched 1 and 1/3 innings of shutout ball to keep the score tied until Barsi’s heroics in the seventh.
Facing the Bells, hard-throwing reliever Andy Slorp, who earlier blasted the grand slam, Barsi unloaded what he called the biggest hit of his career on a 2-2 count.
“I’m a fast ball hitter and was looking for one,” he said, “but he threw me a curve and I was able to stay back with my bat and hit it.”
Barsi also contributed two singles and drove in three runs. Teammate Danny McCarthy had three RBIs and hit a two-run double in the first inning to stake the Lancers to a 2-0 lead.
Perkins sailed through the first two innings with only 12 pitches, but got lit up in the third and fourth innings when he got his pitches up against a team that entered the team with a collective .382 batting average.
Fortunately for the Lancers, who seemed to have left their running shoes in the dugout, got their hitting shoes on at the plate to save the day.
Spartans start new streak
Mountain View recovered from a three-game losing streak by winning both its El Camino Division games last week.
The visiting Spartans (6-5, 11-7) defeated Monta Vista 6-1 April 9 and routed Santa Clara 9-0 Thursday.
Brian Simoni led the Mountain View offense in both games. The senior had three hits, two of them doubles, against Monta Vista and went 4-4 with two RBIs vs. Santa Clara.
Tristan Schuman pitched a complete game Thursday, striking out nine batters and allowing just three hits.
Homestead tames Eagles
Stymied by Homestead pitcher Chris McKim, Los Altos fell 5-1 to the visiting Mustangs Thursday in El Camino Division action.
McKim allowed just two hits, both coming off the bat of sophomore Donnie Ecker.
David Martinez took the loss for Los Altos (5-5, 8-12), which earlier in the week beat Santa Clara and Lynbrook in divisional play.
