Burlingame Panthers deliver first CCS baseball title for 11th-year skipper Shawn Scott

“They’re dirtbags,” said Shawn Scott, manager of the Panthers, in his succinct style with a wry smile breaking through his typically stoic expression.

There are generally only two reasons baseball players get dirty. One, because they play hard. Two, because they’re running the bases a lot. The No. 6-seed Panthers (18-9) did both to the max to stun No. 4 Los Altos in claiming their first CCS title since 2010, their third all-time, and the first in Scott’s 11 years at the helm.

While starting pitcher Max Alvira went the distance — allowing single runs in the first and third before closing the championship run with goose eggs through the final four frames — the Panthers’ offense was circling the bases with abandon. And with leadoff hitter Keunho Kim capping the day’s scoring with a two-run double in the seventh, it rounded out a performance which saw every Burlingame batter reach base.

It was a fitting finale for a sum-of-its-parts Burlingame squad, which doesn’t have anywhere near the star power of Los Altos, boasting 2021 CCS home run king Aaron Parker — a UC Santa Barbara commit — who added to his total with a booming solo homer in the third.

“We didn’t have the biggest guys, we didn’t have the most skilled team, but we grinded every pitch,” Burlingame junior Lou Martineau said.

Martineau has bragging rights over any player involved in Saturday’s game. Having also played Burlingame hoops for a team that captured the CCS Division III boys’ basketball crown June 12, the junior is the only Panther to have started on two CCS champions this season. Junior Sean Richardson, a basketball starter and baseball reserve, also celebrated both titles.

And Martineau, along with every one of Burlingame’s dirtbags, knew what was at stake for Scott, who has led the Panthers to the CCS postseason nine times, including a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Menlo School in the Division II championship game in 2017.

“He’s an awesome coach,” Martineau said. “It means everything. He’s been so close so many times, I know it means the world to all of us.”

The Panthers certainly played like it.

Burlingame quickly set the table in the top of the first against Los Altos starting pitcher Aidan Brenner. With one out, Johnny Suarez singled, Martineau walked, and cleanup batter Taylor Kaufman produced an RBI single.

Los Altos (14-12) answered in the bottom of the first after a Parker triple when Brenner drove him home with a base hit. Parker went on to give the Eagles a brief 2-1 lead with his 12th homer of the year in the bottom of the third. But Alvira buckled down from there, benefitting from four double plays turned by the Burlingame defense, to go the distance for the third time this season and the fifth time in his varsity career.

“I didn’t expect anything less,” Scott said. “That’s what he’s given us the last three years. So, I did not expect anything less.”

And after Burlingame senior Dexter Quisol scored the tying run in the fourth inning on an RBI single by No. 9 hitter Ryan Kang, the Panthers stormed ahead with four runs in the fifth.

“The first four innings, we just had to battle,” Quisol said. “But in big moments, we were able to get ours, and we just took advantage.”

After the Panthers turned a fluke double play in the bottom of the fourth — the Los Altos runner at second strayed too far on a line out to left field, allowing Burlingame to erase the threat in scoring position for the final out of the inning — Quisol then produced the go-ahead knock in the fifth, drilling an RBI double over the third-base bag that just managed to stay fair to score Suarez.

“I was just sitting fastball … I just saw it early and it went right over the bag,” Quisol said. “Luckily, it went fair.”

Jacob Cilia followed with a two-run double and sophomore catcher Charlie Happ added a sacrifice fly to make it 6-2.

Then in the seventh, the Panthers broke it open. Kaufman scored on a throwing error on a swinging bunt single by Cilia. Then after another sacrifice fly off the bat of Happ to score the pinch-runner Richardson, Kim drove home Jake Caprini and Kang to run the Burlingame scoring tally to 10.

Alvira, whose five strikeouts were all recorded through the final three innings, finished off the complete game victory with a punch-out to set off an epic dirtbag dogpile in the middle of the infield.

“It was the best feeling ever,” Alvira said. “I’ve been waiting for a moment like this my whole life. And I’m glad I got to celebrate it with a team like this.”