2-A Baseball : Mission Bay Reaches Final, Will Play Castle Park

As Mission Bay right-hander Scott Kuhl reared back and fired the first pitch of his team’s San Diego Section 2-A semifinal playoff game against the University of San Diego High School Saturday, a couple of coaches were thinking of him.

Mission Bay’s Dennis Pugh was thinking he’d like to see Kuhl pitch as many innings as possible, because Buccaneer ace Sean Rees, who threw a complete on Thursday, was available only for short relief. And USDHS Coach Dick Serrano was hoping his club would hit Kuhl early, because he knew if things came down to the wire, the Dons would have to face Rees.

The game did go to the wire, and Rees was in at the end. But it went according to Pugh’s wishes, not Serrano’s. Kuhl allowed just a run and six hits in 5 innings, and top-seeded Mission Bay advanced to Wednesday’s championship with a 2-1 victory.

The Buccaneers (24-3-1) will face No. 2 seeded Castle Park (25-4-1), which beat La Jolla, 6-4, in the second game Saturday at the University of San Diego’s Cunningham Stadium.

“I was nervous, because I knew we had to win,” Kuhl said. “My fastball was going really good, but then I started slowing down, so I started working my curveball. It was one of the best games I ever pitched.”

After a rocky first inning in which Kuhl gave up a walk and a single and stranded a runner at second, he settled down. He sailed through the second on five pitches--a grounder to second, a fly to center and a grounder to third interrupted only by two balls--and gained confidence from there.

By the end of the fifth, Kuhl had thrown just 57 pitches. By comparison, USDHS left-hander Matt Siesel had used 97.

Kuhl was given a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when Rees ripped Siesel’s second pitch to the left-field wall and went to third when USDHS’s Gavin Millay fell while chasing the ball. Rees scored on Colin Davis’ sacrifice fly to left.

Mission Bay went ahead, 2-0, in the fifth when Pat Betancourt doubled home Tony Enomoto, who had walked.

USDHS tightened the game in the sixth when Lee Wielebski singled pinch-runner Sean Nugent home and pinch-runner Todd Czarnecki to second to make it 2-1. Two were out, and Rees was summoned to replace Kuhl. He had a 2 and 2 count to his first batter, Millay, when catcher Enomoto caught Czarnecki attempting to steal third. In the seventh, Rees set down USDHS one-two-three.

In the second game, Castle Park walked to an emotional victory. La Jolla starting pitcher Brent Woodall issued nine bases on balls before being ejected, along with coach Dick Huddleston and left fielder Willy Barnett, for arguing balls and strikes with one out in the sixth.

Five of Castle Park’s six runs were scored by players who had reached base by walking. Still, the Trojans didn’t have it easy. They had to overcome deficits of 1-0 and 4-3 to advance to their first section championship game.

“It’s like Star Trek,” Castle Park Coach Bob Korzep said. “We’ve gone where no Castle Park team has ever gone before. We wanted to win the championship, and now we have a chance to do it.”

Starting pitcher Juan Beltran went the whole way for Castle Park, despite allowing three runs and four hits in the fourth.

Joe Carrillo and Darin Husted each had two runs batted in for Castle Park, which scored twice in the first and fifth and once each in the third and sixth.