SAN JOSE — Talk about getting hot at the right time.
That’s certainly what the Bellarmine baseball team has done.’Fifth-place finishers in the West Catholic Athletic League regular season, Bellarmine went on the road this week in the league tournament and defeated three higher-seeded teams. The coup de grace came Thursday with a 3-1 win over second-place Valley Christian to capture the WCAL tournament championship.
In three games, the Bells allowed a total of two runs. They won at St. Francis on Tuesday 4-1 and at regular-season champion Serra on Wednesday, 1-0.
The championship was Bellarmine’s first since 2013.
Valley Christian coach John Diatte knew his club would be facing a dangerous team with a high level of momentum and belief in themselves.
“I told the group, `This is a hot team playing very good baseball,’” Diatte said. “You can’t make mistakes. They’re going to force the issue. We put a lot of balls in play, and they made all the plays.”
Senior left-hander Christian Duarte got the ball Thursday for Bellarmine and never gave it up. He threw a complete-game four-hitter with two walks and two strikeouts.
“He threw the best game of his life in the biggest moment,” Bellarmine coach Nate Sutton said. “He’s a great kid, a coach’s dream.”
Duarte, who is headed just a couple miles up the road for college at Santa Clara University, felt he had to live up to the outstanding performances turned in by fellow pitching staff members Apolo Lapiz and Preston Pera the previous two days.
“Big motivation after what Apolo and Preston did,” he said.
So what pitch was working?
“My sinker,” he said, with no hesitation. “I try to get movement on everything.”
Bellarmine (16-13) jumped out to the lead with a run in the top of the first. Luke McNeil and Ollie McNamara hit one-out singles. Then with two out lefty-batting designated hitter Dash Knight hit a chopper to the left side. The Valley Christian shortstop tried to backhand it, but it got through to the outfield with McNeil scoring from second.
The Bells added a run in the third when McNamara singled and scored on Vincent Kim’s double, a drive which just eluded a diving Brock Ketelsen in center field.
Valley got a run back in the bottom of the third. Jacob Pauka drew a leadoff walk and scored on Quentin Marsh’s ground out.
Rohan Kasanagottu relieved starter Cole Laubach in the fourth for Valley Christian and did not allow a hit in his 2 ⅓ innings.
But the Bells managed an insurance run in the fifth when Kim reached after being hit by a pitch. He took second on a wild pitch and then took off for third with the pitcher still holding the ball.
Kasanagottu pivoted and threw in an attempt to nab Kim, but the ball got past the third baseman and Kim scored.
And that was pretty much it. Nathan Choi hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh for Valley, but a 5-4-3 double play erased the runner and Duarte induced the final out on a grounder to shortstop. He got 11 ground-ball outs in all.
And the celebration for the unlikely tournament champions began.
“They could’ve quit when we started out 0-5 in WCAL play,” Sutton said. “Our pitching has been great all year and now we’re playing very good defense behind them. Our first victory at St. Francis, I could feel the momentum turning. We started getting some breaks.”
