By Pete Borello

When a baseball team is rolling like Los Altos High, the playoffs can’t begin soon enough.

“They’re confident they can win, and they’re eager,” head coach Sandy Wihtol said of his Eagles, who enter Thursday’s Central Coast Section Division II opener on a six-game winning streak. “They’re eager to get out there — and they’re ready.”

Los Altos, seeded 11th, plays at No. 6 Los Gatos. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.

The Eagles (18-11), champions of the SCVAL El Camino Division, take on a Los Gatos team (16-12) it beat early in the year at the Wilcox Tournament.

Wihtol will send out the same pitcher who earned the 8-2 win back in March: Greg LaLonde. The junior went 5-2 in league (6-3 overall) with a 2.02 ERA.

“As long as he gets his offspeed pitches over, he’ll do fine,” Wihtol said of LaLonde, who pitched a shutout in last Thursday’s 6-0 league-finale win at Lynbrook.

The coach also has confidence in his resurgent offense.

“Our hitters are coming alive again,” he said. “Other than the Monta Vista game, we’ve scored a lot of runs the last six games.”

Donnie Ecker leads the squad with a .541 batting average in league; Troy Haury follows at .400; and Brian Johnson and Daniel Tugaw are around .300.

St. Francis has earned the second seed in the CCS Division I playoffs and will host No. 15 Silver Creek (18-3) at 4 p.m., today.

The Lancers enter the game at 25-7, capping regular-season play with a 6-5 loss to Serra Thursday in the finals of the West Catholic Athletic League tourney. Kyle Spraker had three hits for St. Francis, including a double.

In the quarterfinals, Ryan Lee had six RBIs in the Lancers’ 15-10 win over Riordan.