St. Edward wins regional semifinal

St. Edward’s baseball team has struggled on offense all year.

The Green Wave didn’t exactly knock the cover off the ball Thursday, but they generated enough offense to defeat Northridge Prep, 3-2, and advance to the final of the Class 2A Westminster Christian regional.

St. Edward (6-23) faces the hosts at 4:30 p.m. this afternoon for the regional title. The game was moved up from Saturday due to concerns about the weather.

Trailing 2-0 entering the fifth inning, the Wave scored 3 times on just 1 hit. Austin Davis and Luke Duffy shut down the Knights (11-14) the rest of the way.

Jake Koehring had 3 of the Wave’s 6 hits.

Zach Brewster led off the fifth with a walk against reliever Mike Gigante. He proceeded to steal second and third before scoring on Ryan DiCristofano’s single just under the shortstop’s glove.

Duffy then walked, and Tighe Koehring reached on a fielder’s choice. Derek Porto’s grounder plated a second run, and Duffy scored on a wild pitch.

“We have struggled so much offensively, and if we had not put runners in motion and if we hadn’t stolen bases, we don’t score,” said St. Edward coach Gene Belmonte. “We couldn’t situation hit very well. So when nothing’s happening, you’ve got to start rolling the dice.”

Brewster’s steals got the inning rolling.

“We haven’t stolen a lot of bases, but today it worked for us,” said Brewster. Because it was the regional, the Wave “let it all out right now. We were making contact, it was just a matter of time before we started scoring some runs.”

Davis, the St. Edward starter, made it stand up. He retired the last 7 batters he faced before giving way to Duffy in the seventh.

Duffy surrendered a leadoff double to John Sander, but escaped the jam, striking out leadoff hitter Pete Kane to end it.

“The first inning I was a little nervous, because it was like: Wow. The game. It’s important,” said Davis. “It was a little overwhelming, but once I found my rhythm it felt great.”

Northridge got 3 straight hits to take a 1-0 lead in the first. Kyle Antene’s bloop to right field drove in the run. The Knights added a run in the fourth after Antene singled leading off and eventually scored on a double play, but that was all the offense they could muster.

“That was a solid game that we played,” said Northridge coach Patrick Hunt. “Generally, we hit the ball well today. We showed a few spurts of that, but didn’t score.”