Foothill-De La Salle baseball final set
Foothill-Pleasanton baseball coach Angelo Scavone said sometimes the stars just align correctly.
Or, maybe, you jot down a master plan and all the stars align to make it happen.
However one looks at it, Foothill is on a collision course with East Bay Athletic League rival De La Salle-Concord after each recorded mercy-rule North Coast Section semifinal home victories Tuesday night.
Top-seeded De La Salle (25-4) won its sixth straight game and its 20th out of 21 with a 10-0 triumph over Heritage-Brentwood.
Taison Corio (3-for-4, four runs), Austin Elder (three RBIs) and Trace Tammaro (three RBIs) all hit homers and Kyle Harrison and Chris Santiago combined on three-hitter with six strikeouts.
Meanwhile in Pleasanton, Sam Novitske went 3-for-4, eight different Falcons (23-5) drove in runs and 6-foot-6 sophomore Ben Hansen scattered five hits and struck out two in an 11-1 win over Freedom-Oakley.
Second-seed Foothill plays De La Salle at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary’s College for the championship. The teams played twice before, both De La Salle wins, 6-2 and 11-4, but in both games, Scavone decided not to show the Spartans Brett Hansen, Ben’s older brother, a Vanderbilt commit and probable first- or secondday Major League Baseball
draft prospect. The 6-4, 200pound left-hander is 8-0 with 67 strikeouts and a 1.17 ERA in 54 innings.
“He’s been begging to throw the ball against the Spartans,” Scavone said. “We thought it was better to wait. … Sometimes things have all got to align. Now that they have we have to come out and perform.”
Said Brett Hansen: “If we’re finally going to beat these guys, it might as well be in the biggest game. We’re just going to throw our gloves out there and see how it goes.”
They’ll need more than glove work to slow down the Spartans, who have won their past six games by a combined score of 49-10, including three NCS opponents by combined 31-3. De La Salle makes its seventh straight NCS final appearance. It has won the previous four of six.
“You can throw all the past stuff out the window,” De La Salle coach David Jeans said. “It’s all about seven innings on Saturday. Every pitch will matter. It’s going to be a big old dogfight. Angelo’s kids play hard. We play hard. It’s just a great game for high school baseball.”
Division 3: Host Campolindo-Moraga broke open a tie game with nine runs in the sixth inning to beat Kennedy-Fremont 12-3 and move into the Division 3 championship game at noon Saturday at St. Mary’s against ninth seed San Marin-Novato (1611-1), a 7-4 winner at fifth seed Bishop O’Dowd-Oakland. Trevin Kroichick and Brett Donat each had two hits in a sixth-inning explosion for Campolindo (15-10), and Ryan Regan added a two-run single. Lucas Allen collected three RBIs and winning pitcher Michael Crews threw six strong innings. Campo has won six straight. … In San Marin’s win, Caden Franchesini’s run-scoring single in the sixth put the Mustangs up for good. Connor Moylan added a two-run single and Jake Schmidt drove in three runs with a double and a single.
Softball: In Division 2 semifinal play at Willow Pass Park, a run-scoring single by Makenzie Miller and RBI triple from Gabriella Williams in the first were all the runs fourth-seeded Carondelet (19-8) needed in a 5-1 win over Livermore. After Livermore (15-12) cut the lead to 2-1, back-toback doubles by Sofia Earle and Jesse Juinio made it 3-1, and Julianna Bridges and Alexandria Schwenger added RBI singles for Carondelet, which plays the winner of Wednesday’s Bishop O’Dowd-Concord matchup.
AAA All-League: Lowell senior Owen Mahoney was selected the baseball Player of the Year and senior teammate Alex Bradshaw Pitcher of the Year in the Academic Athletic Association. Senior Devlin Stanley, junior Levi Humphrey and sophomore Cameron Tang were other first-team All-AAA selections from Lowell. Junior Connor “C.J.” Pino and seniors Adam Sabatino and Artus Tran were first-teamers for AAA runner-up Mission. Lowell senior Kelly Lai was the AAA’s softball Player of the Year and Balboa senior Kassandra Lacayo was the Pitcher of the Year. Makaena Gee and Ella Gibson were other first-team All-AAA members for league champion Lowell.