Serra weighs its pitching options

SAN MATEO – Jack Armstrong called it. Serra's senior catcher had just singled through the hole between first and second to load the bases in the 12th inning of Tuesdays NorCal quarterfinal game with College Park.

And as the Falcons made a pitching change and as sophomore Nathan Glieden took his warmup pitches, Armstrong, standing on first base, turned to College Park first baseman Samuel Johnston and told him how the game was going to end.

"'I bet you it's a walk right here,'" he said to Johnston. "Young guy on the mound, sophomore coming in. That's a lot of pressure for a kid in that situation."

Armstrong was proven right when Tyler Harrison walked on five pitches to force home Evan Bradshaw, and end what had been a win-or-go-home game – one filled with drama, big defensive plays and strong pitching – in perhaps the most anticlimactic way possible.

The Padres won't apologize for their 2-1 victory or the walk-off walk. Nor should they. The point here is that pitching depth eventually catches up to everyone. In a pinch, the Falcons had to go with a sophomore in a high-leverage situation. That's what a 12-inning game will do to a pitching staff.

And by surviving Tuesday's 12-inning, three-hour marathon, Serra (27-6) now faces a pitching dilemma as it heads into Thursday's NorCal-Division I semifinal contest with visiting Los Gatos.

In other NorCal tournament games involving Peninsula teams, Saint Francis plays host to Acalanes in a Division II contest, while Menlo School travels to Woodland Christian, the top-seeded team in the Division IV bracket. All games are at 4 p.m.

Serra's pitching staff is running on fumes. Riley Lim pitched Saturday and is likely being saved in the event the Padres find their way into Saturday's NorCal championship game. Davis Minton threw 83 pitches in five innings of relief work on Tuesday, while Kelley Crawford and Aiden Waters are both maxed out, too.

"The whole game plan was (Tuesday) was to go Crawford to Waters and then kind of let the game unfold," said Serra coach Mat Keplinger. "Davis on short rest in relief. We though he might close. He went five innings. I've never seen anything like that."

The original plan was that Minton would have started Thursday's game on eight days of rest. But the Padres had to get past Tuesday before they could think of Thursday. Now Keplinger will lean on a trio of pitchers available to him.

If there is reason for optimism, it's that that trio – Richie Calderon, Nate Hui and shortstop Ian Josephson – held the hard-hitting Wildcats (25-5) to six hits and just a single run on a Will Temple home run on March 1 in Serra's 6-1 victory over Los Gatos in the championship game of the Battle for Atherton.

Josephson, who has been nursing a strained hamstring most of the year, pitched the final three innings – his longest varsity stint ever – and picked up the win when the Padres scored five runs in the top of the eighth inning.

"We have Richie and Hui and myself," said Josephson, who hasn't pitched since giving up three runs and a lead to De La Salle at the Boras Baseball Classic in Sacramento in April. Los Gatos "has already seen all of us."