Burlingame, Carlmont baseball meet this week in Battle for the PAL Bay

The saying “something has to give” doesn’t necessarily apply here. At least it won’t if third-place Aragon has its way, and Burlingame and Carlmont go on to split the series, allowing the Dons a chance to catch the division leaders in the PAL Bay standings. But the Scots are certainly playing like a team on a mission, having outscored Hillsdale 19-4 in a two-game series sweep last week.

“They’re not just the best team in the PAL, they are one of the top five teams on the Peninsula,” Burlingame manager Shawn Scott said. “I don’t know if it’s just the bats or their overall energy to play together and play as a team.”

Both teams enter play with 5-1 league records, with Aragon one game back at 4-2. Wednesday’s game marks the midpoint of the 14-game league schedule.

Carlmont has been getting power up and down the batting order. While seniors Tripp Garrish and Jack Vanoncini are proving the most formidable No. 3 and 4 hitters in the league, it was the No. 5 and 6 hitters who fueled last Friday’s 13-3 win at Hillsdale. The Scots woke up with a grand slam home run by Aidan Kurt in the first inning. Carson Vance followed with a solo shot later in the day.

The Scots have now homered 12 times on the season — led by Vance with three — with longballs from seven different players.

“It’s a pretty special thing to watch,” Carlmont manager Ryan Hamilton said. “I harken back to what these guys have done in the offseason. … We see it and I think it’s a byproduct of something that has been going on for years with this group, not just this year.”

Going up against Burlingame starting pitchers Blake Dempsey and Holden Glavin posses a different kind of challenge though, and not just because the duo has been masterful against Bay Division opponents this season. The series opens Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Burlingame’s Washington Park, where home runs go to die.

The Panthers have surrendered just one home run this season, with neither Dempsey nor Glavin getting taken deep. Both are supreme groundball pitchers, most recently exemplified by Glavin. The junior left-hander’s mastery last Friday in a 2-0 win against a banged-up Capuchino squad saw him total just three strikeouts and 88 pitches. The result? A one-hit shutout in which he faced just four over the minimum.

“We just have guys that throw strikes,” Scott said. “They throw every pitch with conviction, and they have confidence with the work they put in.”

But the Scots are brimming with confidence heading into Burlingame. While they had some trouble against groundball pitchers earlier in the season, they turned a corner against Hillsdale last week in facing two starting pitchers who have seen success pitching to contact.

In this sense, Carlmont couldn’t have asked for a better primer heading into the Burlingame series.

“We’ve definitely gotten better in those … games in scoring output,” Hamilton said. “So, I think we’re getting more comfortable in our plan to attack that.”

Burlingame has to pitch to compete. Relying on winning low-scoring game, the Panthers haven’t exactly torn the cover off the ball this season. As a team, they are batting .212 on the year.

But there is a reason Scott’s squad is tied for first place with the likes of Carlmont.

“They’re a team that is making the most out of what they have,” Hamilton said. “They don’t have a high-powered offense but what they do have is really good pitching and really good defense … and it’s a team for whom we have a lot of respect.”

Each team has one loss in PAL Bay Division play, both splitting two-game series with Aragon. The Scots dropped their league opener to the Dons in a weird contest that saw senior Tanner Van Why get ejected in the first inning.

“We’re in a 14-round fight and we got punched in the mouth in the first round ... but we knew that we were a force in the league and one game wasn’t going to define us.,” Hamilton said.

Carlmont’s fortunes turned after the 6-4 extra-inning loss, however, as Van Why — who, by rule, would have had to sit out the second game of the series due to being ejected — benefitted from having the suspension overturned via protest. He went 1 for 3 with an RBI double and a run scored in the series finale, a 9-4 Scots win.

Wednesday’s series opener sees a scheduled matchup of right-handers, with Dempsey set to take on Carlmont senior Colton Fisher. Friday is slated for two southpaws going head-to-head at Carlmont at 4 p.m., with Glavin taking on the Scots’ ace Garrish.