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Beckman players celebrate after Tuesday’s semifinal victory. (Photos: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Beckman High School’s baseball team kept knocking on the door in the first four innings of Tuesday’s CIF Division 3 semifinal against Los Alamitos.
Los Alamitos kept the Patriots off the scoreboard. But Beckman broke though in the fifth inning with three runs to break a scoreless tie and went on to defeat the Griffins 3-0 to earn a trip to this weekend’s championship game against St. John Bosco at Lake Elsinore Stadium.
The day and time will be announced Wednesday by CIF officials. It will the fourth appearance for Beckman in the finals and the first since 2018 when the Patriots lost to Yucaipa 8-1 in the Division 2 title game at Cal State Fullerton.
Beckman’s CIF title came in 2011 when the Patriots defeated Woodbridge 4-1 in the Division 3 final. Beckman also reached the Division III title game in 2009, losing to South Hills 8-2.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo
in Tuesday’s game at Los Alamitos in front of a big crowd, Beckman (24-6-1) was led by senior left-hander Rex Jarcy, who threw a complete game shutout, allowing six hits. Jarcy (9-2) struck out three and did not walk a batter.
“I knew I wanted to go out and throw strikes,” said Jarcy. “Last week I got in trouble because I was walking guys so I just tried to go out there and trust my stuff, my mechanics and trust all my teammates on the field. To be able to go out there and get a win is pretty special. Last time we made it to the championship, it was our pitching coach Trevor Ernt getting a win in the semis so to follow in his footsteps and win this game means a lot. I couldn’t do anything without him.”
It was Jarcy’s fourth complete game and first shutout of the year.
“A week ago today, he lasted one inning in a second round game, he did not have his best stuff,” said Beckman Coach Kevin Lavalle. “Los Alamitos is big and strong and physical and well coached and fast and sometimes you just have to go with lefty magic. There was never really any doubt who we were going to pitch today. You go through a wide range of thoughts, like, what if Rex gets hit again, who do we go to next?
“And then, we got off the bus today and I said, ‘what if Rex Jarcy throws a complete game shutout?’ He waited his turn last year on varsity, he pitched a little bit but I think a lot of credit has to go to Rex and a lot of credit has to go to Trevor Ernt, one of the all-time greatest left-handed pitchers in Beckman history is now his pitching coach and calling pitches over here. I don’t think Rex has shook him off all year and he has the power to do that.
“And then there was the offense, about two months ago, we couldn’t tie our own shoes, we were so bad at the plate. We had no confidence, and then we met one day and we said, ‘what are we going to do, how are we going to win games?’ To sum it up, we were going to be tougher than everyone else. We’re not big, we’re not super physical but we’ve got a lot of guys who fight for each other at the plate.”
Los Alamitos (24-8) had an early chance to go ahead in the first inning. Jake Fowler singled and advanced to second on a sacrifice by Jake Natori. But Jarcy was able to work out of the jam.
Beckman had the bases loaded with one out in the second inning, but starting pitcher Tristan Dalzell recorded two strikeouts to end the inning.
Los Alamitos also had two runners on in the bottom of the second inning, but came away empty handed.
Beckman stranded seven runners through the first four innings.
Then the Patriots opened the door in the fifth.
Zach Ireland led off with a double to left field and scored on an RBI single by Isaiah Kapur to put the Patriots ahead 1-0. Jack Terry singled and Jagger Snitko followed with a sacrifice. Ethan Rhee then delivered an RBI single for the second run. Terry then scored when Brent Byrd singled, giving the Patriots a three-run cushion.
Ireland, also a standout pitcher who has a no-hitter under his belt, provided the spark once again for his team.
“I was looking for something in the zone,” Ireland said of the double. “I got a fastball, I just wanted to be on time and get on base and help my team win, thankfully I hit it pretty good and the rest is kind of history from there.”
Fowler and Cole Belfanti led Los Alamitos with two hits each.
“If you don’t score any runs, you’re going to lose,” said Los Alamitos Coach Tony Fusco. “We didn’t get enough going offensively, and when we did, we just didn’t get that extra hit to cash in a run. And that was it, no runs isn’t going to get it done.
“We’ve been playing like that where we’ve been getting out of jams, but we usually score some runs at some point and we just didn’t get that done today.”
Fusco said it was a memorable season for his team, which was ranked among the best in the county most of the season.
“You couldn’t ask for a better season, you make it this far, win or lose, you got to be pretty proud of the players, not too many people make it this far and there’s only one team that’s happy in the end,” he said. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do all year. We had a great season and won a lot of big games and made a deep run and I’ll take that every year if I can get it.”
Ryan Deck came on to pitch in the fourth inning for Los Alamitos. Logan Hunt relieved in the fifth inning for the Griffins and held the Patriots scoreless for 2 1/3 innings.
Snitko had two hits for Beckman.
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
