SAN JOSE \u2014 Over time, improvement in the win column over three consecutive years will be looked upon as a milestone \u2013 as layers of bricks being put down for the program with six seniors.<\/p>\n
Just not right now.<\/p>\n
The objective for Palma High was to bring home the program\u2019s first Central Coast Section baseball title in 17 years, to be practicing on Monday for another round.<\/p>\n
Instead, the ending was sudden on Friday as the Chieftains ran into West Catholic Athletic League nemesis Mitty of San Jose, which has found its stride in the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe abruptness is always sudden and shocking,\u201d Palma coach Brian Neff said. \u201cMy message to the team was, I\u2019m not upset about the loss, I\u2019m more upset that I won\u2019t see them on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Monarchs won their seventh section title, producing the game\u2019s first four runs in a 5-2 win over Palma in the Division II finals at Excite Ballpark in San Jose, advancing to the Northern California Tournament.<\/p>\n
Three teams from the WCAL are headed to the state tournament, which begins next Tuesday \u2014 the most from any league in the section.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had some milestones the last couple of years,\u201d Neff said. \u201cWe won the (Pacific Coast Athletic League\u2019s Gabilan Division) last year. We won 22 games this year and got to the CCS finals. We won\u2019t dwell on one game. I look at the body of work the boys have put in over the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitty, which finished seventh in the WCAL this past spring, is 14-1 this season against teams outside its league, including a 21-0 win over Gabilan Division champion Carmel last Tuesday to advance to the section title game.<\/p>\n
The Monarchs avenged a pair of WCAL losses to Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco after beating them 4-2 in the opening round of the Division II playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir foot speed on the bases bothered us,\u201d said Neff, who has won 43 games over the past two years. \u201cWe made some pressure throws in the infield. Their pitcher pitched out of traffic and executed his pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having outscored two playoff opponents 17-5 to reach their third CCS finals appearance in six years, the No. 2 seeded Chieftains only section title came in 2009 when they won four playoff games to capture a Division III championship.<\/p>\n
Palma was no stranger to facing WCAL teams, having beaten Division I top seed Valley Christian earlier this year, while falling to DI\u00a0 No. 3 seed St. Francis of Mountain View. Its last postseason win against a WCAL team came against Mitty in 2016.<\/p>\n
Yet, for the first time since suffering their last loss on April 29 to Hollister, the Chieftains found themselves staring at a 3-0 deficit in the second inning, highlighted by Felix Chang\u2019s solo homer.<\/p>\n
Mitty (18-11) extended the lead to 4-0 before Palma cut into the deficit, using a run-scoring single from Damien Lopez to get on the scoreboard in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t sense any panic in the dugout,\u201d Neff said. \u201cWe were kind of waiting for it to happen. We had an inning where we thought it would happen. We\u2019ve put up a lot of runs of late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabilan Division runner-ups to Carmel, the Chieftains (22-8) came into the game riding a seven-game winning streak, in which they had scored 67 runs, having gone 14-1 in their past 15 games.<\/p>\n
Palma actually brought the tying run to the plate in the fifth inning with one out\u00a0before No. 5 seed Mitty induced a double play to end the threat.<\/p>\n
The teams traded runs in the sixth inning, with relief pitcher Gabe Serrano delivering a sacrifice fly after Zach Gonzales doubled. Two hits batsman to open the seventh inning brought the tying run to the plate for Palma.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, I felt like we were going to win that game,\u201d Neff said. \u201cOur No. 9 and leadoff hitter both reached base with no outs. We just could not square it up. Mitty brought in a new arm. I\u2019m sure there are some at-bats that our guys would like to have back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzales, who along with Aiden Veliz, both collected two hits, hurled the first five innings, with three errors helping Mitty push across two unearned runs. Serrano tossed the final two frames in his final outing as a Chieftain.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we\u2019d have to play a clean game to beat these guys,\u201d Neff said. \u201cGabe gave us five solid innings of pitching in the playoffs. All six of our seniors are starters. They have laid the foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 Over time, improvement in the win column over three consecutive years will be looked upon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5097,7,11026,11027,11028,1471,11029,11030,11031,85021,2044,11032,181,11041,5434,10007,858,11033,266,11034,11035,11036,11037,88,90,89,11038,11039,11040,127,31863],"class_list":["post-339190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-big-sur","tag-california","tag-carmel","tag-carmel-valley","tag-castroville","tag-central-coast","tag-del-rey-oaks","tag-gonzales","tag-greenfield","tag-high-school-baseball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-king-city","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-sports","tag-marina","tag-monterey","tag-monterey-county","tag-moss-landing","tag-northern-california","tag-pacific-grove","tag-pebble-beach","tag-prunedale","tag-salinas","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sand-city","tag-seaside","tag-soledad","tag-sports","tag-sports-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}