Serra baseball swept by largely San Mateo-native St. Ignatius

After No. 9 hitter Atticus Gibson flexed his power with a go-ahead solo home run in the seventh, Rhein went on to log a career-high 6 1/3 innings to earn the win.

“I live right down the street,” Rhein said. “I’ve played with a lot of those guys too. So, it’s fun to come and compete against them.”

The Padres (5-5, 15-6) greeted Rhein rudely, using plenty of hard contact to rally in the early going. Junior leadoff man Jace Peavey opened the bottom of the first with a loud single to left, and senior Nate Hui followed with a booming double off the left-field netting. After Peavey scored on a balk, Michael Ohman drove home a run with an RBI fielder’s choice.

Then in the second, junior Aaron Minton ripped a leadoff single to left, and junior William Walbridge scorched a double into the right-field corner to put runners at second and third. Junior Donovan Friedland then reached on an infield error to drive home Minton, and put runners at the corners with no outs.

However, that’s when Rhein upped his game, as the Padres’ lead stalled at 3-0.

“We had him on the ropes there early, and I think a lot of it was we kind of got off our approach there a little bit,” Padres manager Mat Keplinger said. “We had an opportunity, it seemed like it, to get to their bullpen early. He did settle in but a lot of it was we got off our approach, and we just weren’t able to get back on track with what was giving us success there early in the game.”

Rhein didn’t let another ball out of the infield until Minton flew out to center field to end the sixth inning. He went strikeout, pop-out, groundout to leave two runners stranded in the second. It was the beginning of the junior setting down nine of 10 Padres, with the only baserunner in that span, a third-inning walk to junior Brody Crudeli, getting erased when St. Ignatius catcher AJ Wineinger threw him out at second trying to steal.

“Slider, splitter starting to work later innings,” Rhein said. “Those first two innings I was a little rattled. They were loud. Coming into this place it tough.”

Rhein is far from the only San Mateo native on the St. Ignatius roster. Like Rhein, fellow Wildcats RJ Church, Chase Gordon, Milo Morelli and Stanford commit Archer Horn are all former San Mateo American Little League All-Stars. Brothers Jack and Cole Callen were both Hillsborough Little League All-Stars, while Wineinger and DJ Delaney are both natives of Pacifica.

“We have about three-quarters (of our) guys from the Peninsula,” Wildcats manager Brian Pollzzie said. “A lot of San Mateo guys. Especially losing to those guys last year, and on Tuesday, it was big for them.”

Serra swept a two-game series from St. Ignatius last season, and won Tuesday’s series opener 8-5 at Fairmont Park. The Padres had won four straight going into Friday’s game, and had a chance to climb into a fourth-place tie with the Wildcats in the West Catholic Athletic League standings. Now, Serra is stuck in fifth, two games back of St. Ignatius.

“Everyone’s upset,” Keplinger said. “We obviously know they’re going to be tight games. But that one stings for a lot of reasons. Not only for the matchup piece of it, but we were stringing a number of wins together in league, giving us a chance just to be playing good baseball down the stretch.”

Just as upsetting as the loss was how St. Ignatius powered the comeback win.

Ohman took the mound for the Padres, and was sharp through the first three innings. The Wildcats scratched a run out in the fourth, with back-to-back doubles by Gordon and Wineinger. But it was in the fifth when the tide turned.

Gibson led off the inning with a bloop single. The left-handed hitting Horn followed with a deep fly ball down the right-field line. Off the bat it looked like it could be a game-tying home run, but it curled foul at the last second. The foul fly landed in play, though, and Keplinger was critical of his team for not tracking it down.

“It’s attention to detail,” Keplinger said. “We had an opportunity to win the game and, unfortunately, the details showed up.”

Gibson was then erased when the left-handed Ohman timed a pickoff throw behind the steal attempt of Gibson, who got gunned down at second. But then Horn reached on an infield single, with a slow roller to the right side of which Keplinger was also critical for his defense not recording an out. After a passed ball and a wild pitch, Horn scored on a sacrifice fly from Delaney to cut Serra’s lead to 3-2.

“Those are young mistakes with ... inexperienced players that showed up,” Keplinger said. “Those have come to haunt us throughout the year, and we’ve done a better job over these last few weeks of cleaning those up. But those surfaced a little bit today.”

Then the Wildcats’ power reared its head. No. 3 hitter Ryan Rosenthal followed with a solo home run to right-center to tie it 3-all, and knock Ohman out of the game. Then in the seventh, facing the Padres’ bullpen, Gibson led off the inning by falling behind in the count 0-2 before battling back, and connecting with a fastball for a booming go-ahead home run to left.

Serra set the table against Rhein in the bottom of the seventh when Walbridge roped a long single off the left-field wall. Rhein bounced back, though, falling behind in the count 3-1 to junior Friedland before peppering the bottom of the strike zone with two straight strikes, including a called third on his final pitch of the afternoon.

“I had to get in the zone,” Rhein said. “I was down 3-1, so just bared down and got it in there.”

With Wineinger taking over on the mound, Serra tested St. Ignatius’ new catcher, senior RJ Kott, a Burlingame native, on the first pitch out of the gate as pinch-runner PJ Bordin attempted to steal. Kott, though, answered the challenge with a laser beam on target to thrown out Bordin for the second out.

“New catcher coming fresh off the bench ... we were trying to find a way to get into scoring position,” Keplinger said. “You tip your hat. That kid made a heck of a throw.”

Wineinger ended by recording a swinging strikeout.

With the win, Rhein — who started the year in the St. Ignatius bullpen — improves to 5-1 with a 2.15 ERA. His five wins and 39 innings pitched lead the team.

“He’s really emerged as our best starter,” Pollzzie said. “To come over here today in a game we needed to get, he did a good job.”