The Live Oak baseball team will open the Central Coast Section Division II playoffs on the road, traveling to San Lorenzo Valley on Wednesday.
The Acorns finished fifth in the Mt. Hamilton Division, after going 15-14 overall for the season and 7-7 in league play.
Live Oak will face a Cougars team that finished fourth in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League, going 5-7 in league play and 15-11 overall.
SLV has stumbled of late, falling in five of its last seven games.
The Cougars’ offense is led by Nathan Gentry, who led the team with a .362 batting average among players with more than 15 games played. He had 18 RBIs and 20 runs scored.
Like Live Oak, SLV is a contact team, hitting just three home runs as a team and 44 extra base hits the whole season. By comparison, Live Oak has hit one homer and 41 extra base hits.
The Cougars’ pitching staff has a team 2.86 ERA, with Matt Gaspar leading things with a 5-1 record, but sports a 3.90 ERA over a 41.1 innings pitched.
He has 30 strikeouts against 23 walks.
The workhorse of the team is Robbie Carling, who has 55 innings of work, sporting a 4-4 record in 12 appearances with a 3.05 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP.
San Lorenzo Valley’s No. 3 man Matt Robustelli is 4-2 with a 2.06 ERA in nine appearances on the hill. He has a much better 36:8 strikeout to walk ratio.
The winner will face the winner of No. 14 Aragon at No. 3 Soledad on Saturday.
Live Oak vs Branham
Two runs was all Branham needed against Live Oak in the Mt. Hamilton playoffs, to knock out the Acorns 2-1 on Thursday.
Live Oak out hit Branham 6-3, but a key error in the fourth inning proved to be the difference.
After a one-out walk, Michael Porras struck out the next hitter, but a dribbler back to the mound was misplayed, allowing the first runner to score.
Two singles later, Live Oak trailed 2-0.
Porras was finally lifted in the fifth inning for Kyle Riveron, who went the final inning and a third, retiring all four batters he faced.
Porras went 4.2 innings, giving up two unearned runs on three hits and three walks with five strikeouts.
Meanwhile, the Acorns threatened in the seventh to at least tie the game when AJ Martinez reached on an error to lead off the inning and Josh Alaniz tripled to pull Live Oak to within one with two outs.
But Branham got the final hitter to strikeout, ending Live Oak’s chances.
The Acorns, however, had opportunities the whole game, but went 0-8 with runners in scoring position. Live Oak stranded seven runners for the game.
