Burlingame baseball clinches the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division title

And they continued their brand of “torture” baseball when the Panthers hosted King’s Academy Friday afternoon at Washington Park with the Bay Division title on the line. Burlingame and Menlo-Atherton entered the day both with three losses, but the Bears still had a game to play Saturday, after playing Hillsdale Friday.

A Bears’ sweep of both games would have created a co-championship.

But the Panthers get to celebrate an outright Bay Division crown this weekend. Not only did Burlingame do what they do in an 8-4 win over King’s, but Hillsdale stunned M-A, hanging a mercy-rule, 10-0 loss on the Bears, giving Burlingame (11-3 PAL Bay, 17-9 overall) the outright championship — it’s second in three seasons.

Making the win even more dramatic was that it came in the final home game of Burlingame manager Shawn Scott’s career, who is stepping down after 16 years as the Panthers’ head man and more than 20 in the program.

“It’s very sentimental,” said Burlingame leadoff hitter Grayson Howard, who went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and and two runs scored.

“It’s the best feeling ever.”

It was really no secret Scott was managing his last game at Washington Park and a contingent of alumni showed up to support their former manager. While the season isn’t over for the Panthers, they earn an automatic bid and a probable home game for the Central Coast Section playoffs, they will have to go on the road. Because grandstand repairs have not been completed at Washington Park, Burlingame will have to move its playoff game to another facility — most likely Capuchino.

But Friday was more about the 2026 Panthers and how once they found their identity, they established it and then perfected it.

Burlingame scored eight runs on 10 hits, with Slade Flores’ RBI double in the third inning the only extra-base hit. The other nine hits were singles, but they seemingly always came with a runner in scoring position. The Panthers also swiped six bases, took advantage of four King’s Academy errors, three walks and an assortment of wild pitches and passed balls to nickel and dime the Knights to death.

Howard said it took a while for the team to fully buy into to what Scott and his staff were selling. But once the Panthers embraced it, they took off.

“Guys needed to know what their utility was,” Howard said. “We had to come out and be fundamentally better.”

So in the first inning, Howard led off the bottom of the first with an infield hit. He went to second on another infield hit. The Knights couldn’t turn a double play on the next batter, throwing the ball away at first, enabling Howard to score and quickly put the Panthers up 1-0.

“We attacked them in the first game (Wednesday, a 10-5 Burlingame win),” Howard said. “Definitely set the tone early (Friday).”

They added another run in the bottom of the second when Howard stung and opposite-field, RBI single to right to drive in Jean-Luc Uharriet, who had singled and stolen second and third base.

It was 3-0 Burlingame an inning later on Flores’ bolt to the right-center field gap to drive in Oscar Osuna Lopez, who had singled and stolen second.

King’s finally got to Burlingame starting pitcher Daniel MacMillan, who had worked out of jams in the first two innings. In the top of the fourth, King’s put together a three-run rally. A strikeout started the inning, but the Knights got back-to-back singles from Casey Kirk and Tyler Huff, followed by a walk to Brandon Kinoshita to load the bases.

Justin Cho came up with a sacrifice fly to center before Dominic Myung came up with the loudest hit of the day — a two-run triple to the ivy-covered wall in left field to tie the game at 3-all.

But Burlingame grabbed the momentum right back with two runs in the bottom of the inning. Charlie Cheng got the rally started with a one-out walk, went around to third on an errant pickoff attempt and scored on Howard’s second RBI of the game. Mark O’Grady later added an RBI groundout to give Burlingame a 5-3 advantage.

The Panthers added some insurance runs in the fifth. Two singles, a walk, a sacrifice bunt and three wild pitches resulted in three more runs for Burlingame. Preet Mallen and Cheng each picked up RBIs, with Osuna Lopez scoring on a wild pitch.

Drew Gall and O’Grady came on in relief of MacMillan to get the hold and save, respectively.

“These kids just grind it, grind it, grind it all year,” Scott said. “I knew if we could hit a little bit, we could be trouble.

“It’s been a lot (of emotions) the last couple of days. [The team] did a good job of blocking out that stuff (my retirement).”