Serra baseball holds off Alameda

Tuesday, they hosted Alameda in a non-league game and while Serra came away with a 9-6 victory, it was hardly routine. The Padres jumped out to a 9-1 lead after five innings before the Hornets rallied for five runs in the sixth to turn a walk in the park into a save for Serra reliever Thomas Egbert.

“We always make it interesting,” said Ben Cleary, Serra shortstop and cleanup hitter. “We’re not a team that’s going to blow teams out.”

It was early production from Cleary that jump-started the offense for Serra (10-10). His groundout in the bottom of the first inning gave Serra a 1-0 lead and his two-run double with two outs in the second capped a five-run uprising.

That would be enough offensive support for Serra pitcher Garrett Carlson, who was making just his third start of the season.

But the lanky right hander has a quirky, almost side-arm release that makes it tough on opposing hitters.

Carlson was making his eighth appearance of the season and coming into the game had posted a 0.88 ERA. His ERA will remain minuscule after working five innings Tuesday, allowing one run while scattering five hits.

“We’ve been moving him into a starting role. We think that has been a big positive for us,” Serra manager Chris Houle said. “It was his third start and he’s really solidifying [the move]. The ball moves and he throws from different angles.”

But when Houle went to Ryan Beck to start the sixth, that’s when things got interesting. Beck lasted only two-thirds of an inning, giving up five runs on five hits — including a towering three-run homer by Ethan Thomas.

Egbert was summoned and got the last out of the sixth and then worked the seventh, giving up a walk before shutting down the Hornets and earning the save.

“It hasn’t been (easy) all year. Why would it be today?” Houle said.

But thanks to an offensive surge, the Padres managed to hold off Alameda (10-4). A bulk of the damage came from the bottom of the Serra batting order as the Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 hitters — Patrick Macy, Jack Olson, Enoch Mun and Noah Potencion — combined to reach base in 8 of 12 plate appearances, which included five hits, while scoring six runs and driving in three. Mun, who had only 15 at-bats coming into the game, got the start in right field and delivered at the plate. Mun went 3 for 3 with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored.

And for a moment, it appeared Mun had hit his first varsity home run when he jumped on the first pitch he saw in the fifth inning and drove it over the netting in left field.

At least it appeared to go over the netting. But the base umpire conferred with the home plate umpire and the home run was, instead, changed to a ground-rule double as the home plate umpire ruled that the ball went through the netting at the very top and not over it.

Mun still drove in a run with the double and he came around to score on a Potencion single to left.

Potencion was 2 for 3 with the RBI and a run scored.

Getting that kind of production at the bottom of the order “boosts our confidence,” Cleary said.

After scoring a run in the first, Serra took control of the game with five runs in the bottom of the second. With one out, Macy was hit by a pitch and Olson reached on a fielder’s choice, with Macy safe at second when the shortstop bobbled the ball. Mun followed with an RBI single just inside the first-base bag and down the right-field line. Will Bowen later added a sacrifice fly and Cleary came through with the two-out, two-run double to put Serra up 6-0.

“That’s what we did against Mitty — two-out hits to score some runs,” Houle said.

Alameda had a chance to get a run back in the top of the third when Nico Araujo was hit in the head with a Carlson pitch. With two outs, leadoff hitter Luis Licea came to the plate and on a 1-0 pitch, clobbered a double off the left-field fence.

Araujo, who was running on the swing, rounded third and headed home.

Serra left fielder Tyler Peruzzaro hit cut-off man Cleary, who fired an absolute seed to the plate where the ball, catcher Macy and Araujo all converged at the same time, resulting in a collision.

But Macy held onto the ball for final out of the inning.

Alameda reliever Max Cohen shut down Serra for the next couple of innings, but the Padres put together what turned out to be the game-winning rally in the fifth, scoring three times on three hits. Peruzzaro, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, ended up scoring on an error before Mun’s run-scoring double and Potencion’s RBI.

“[This game was] kind of like the season — good and bad,” Houle said. “All of our league games have been close. We know we can play with everybody. We just haven’t put everything together. We talk about the three phases of the game and it’s always one phase that is off. We feel like we’re a pretty good team.”