Late rally in the bottom of the sixth lifts San Mateo baseball team to an 8-3 win over visiting South City

So of course South City gave the Bearcats everything they could handle, with the game tied at 3-all going into the bottom of the sixth.

But San Mateo finally broke through, with a three-run homer being the icing on the cake, as the Bearcats pulled out an 8-3 win for their fourth win in a row, sending the Warriors to a ninth-straight defeat.

“Every [Ocean Division] game is a tough game,” said San Mateo manager Neal Goldstein. “[South City] battled. They didn’t look like an 0-4 team.”

San Mateo (4-1 PAL Ocean, 11-4 overall) scored single runs in each of the first three innings, with South City (0-5, 5-11) taking a 3-2 lead with three runs in the top of third, with the Bearcats answering in the bottom of the inning to tie the score at 3-all.

But for the next three innings, pitching took over. The Bearcats had knocked South City starter Vince Bernal out of the game by the second inning, but reliever Josh Nabung shut down San Mateo for the next three.

Meanwhile, San Mateo starter, Chris Louie, was trying to find the command that saw his mow down Half Moon Bay a week earlier, striking out 14 and allowing one hit in six innings of work.

He added nine more strikeouts Tuesday against the Warriors, limiting them to three runs on three hits. He also managed to work through five innings, but it was anything but easy. Louie walked five during his stint, including a pair that loaded the bases in the top of the first inning following an Emilio Oseguera one-out single.

Louie managed to get out of the inning unscathed with a strikeout and flyout, but he threw 32 pitches.

He appeared to have found his groove in the second, striking out the side on 12 pitches. But he followed that with a 31-pitch third that saw South City score all three of its runs. He walked three more in the inning, including a leadoff base-on-balls to Bernal, who would end up scoring on the back end of a double steal to cut the South City deficit to 2-1.

Walks to Dylan Munsayac and Diego Carranza loaded the bases for the second time in the game and Josh Ornelas made Louie pay with a two-run single to right that drove in a pair and gave the Warriors a 3-2 lead.

“He couldn’t throw enough strikes,” Goldstein said of Louie. “Just an off game for him. … When we win and Chris doesn’t have his best stuff, it’s big for this team.”

Louie finally stabilized and threw a total of 24 pitches over his final two innings before turning the ball over to Tyce Copus, who earned the win with two innings of scoreless relief, striking out four of the seven batters he faced.

He got the win the when the San Mateo offense broke through in the bottom of the sixth. Copus led off the inning with a single and went to second on a Louie sacrifice bunt, that was thrown away first.

After a strikeout, cleanup hitter Hudson Brandt came to the plate. Despite coming into the game batting over .400 for the season, he looked lost at the plate in his first three at-bats and that uncomfortable feeling continued during his at-bat in the sixth.

But he eventually worked the count full before lacing a single to left to drive in Copus with the go-ahead run.

“Clutch hit,” Goldstein said. “First few times (at the plate Tuesday), he did not look like himself.”

Wilson Morales followed with an RBI single to drive in Louie and with runners on first and second, Michael Lackey provided the emphatic hit of the game, a three-run shot to the right of 290-foot sign in left field to push the Bearcats’ lead to 8-3.

San Mateo opened the scoring with a run in the first when Copus led off with a booming double to the left-field corner, followed by a walk to Louie. After a popout, Brandt came up and his a weak grounder right back to the pitcher, but his throw to get the runner at second and try to start a double play sailed into center field, allowing Copus to score.

In the second, Jesus Olivas flipped a single to center to drive in Apollo Lee, who had flared a single to lead off the inning, went to second on a walk to Ben Delfin and Copus reaching on an error to load the bases.

After South City took a 3-2 lead in the top of the third, San Mateo answered back in the bottom of the frame, with Delfin jumping on the first pitch from reliever Nabung and dumping it into shallow left field, just behind the third-base bag to drive in Morales, who had singled to lead off the inning.

Now, San Mateo will go for the sweep, knowing that an undefeated Sacred Heart Prep team looming on the horizon in two weeks.

“For us to stay in it (the Ocean Division race) we have to win Thursday,” Goldstein said. “But we’re not taking [the Warriors] lightly.”