Serra out-pitches Valley

Thursday afternoon against visiting Valley Christian — the top-ranked team in the Central Coast Section by MaxPreps.com — both starred on the mound as the Padres pulled out a 1-0 victory.

Ghiorso, making only his second start of the season for Serra (5-4 WCAL, 10-6 overall), was on top of his game, going the first five innings and allowing only two hits.

Despite being at only 65 pitches, Serra manager Chris Houle lifted Ghiorso for Falk in the sixth and he took it the rest of the way, throwing two innings of one-hit ball.

“Timmy was outstanding. He really wasn’t (part of the starting rotation) at the beginning of the year. He was kind of our No. 1 reliever. With injuries, we’ve had to shuffle the pitching around,” Houle said. “He does a good job of getting ahead. He throws a heavy ball. Locates it well.”

Ghiorso was in the crosshairs of the Valley Christian bench the moment he threw his first warm-up pitch to start the game. Valley Christian (7-2, 13-4) has one of the more boisterous benches you’ll find and they were riding Ghiorso pretty well.

But he did the best thing to quiet chirpy benches — he shoved. He retired the Warriors in order to start the game and then induced an inning-ending double play in the second. Valley Christian got its second base runner of the game in the third when Ghiorso hit his second batter of the game, designated hitter Mark Fairweather, with a 1-2 pitch. He went to second on a sacrifice bunt, but Ghiorso got a strikeout and a flyout to get out of the inning.

He caught a break in the fourth when his Warriors’ counterpart, pitcher Steven Zobac, broke up Ghiorso’s no-hit bid with a shot off the fence in right field.

But Zobac tried to stretch it into a double and was gunned down at second by right fielder Tucker Tollmann for the second out of the inning.

It proved to be a big as Jonathan Cymrot followed with a single of his own, but Ghiorso ended the inning on a groundout to third base.

In the fifth, Ghiorso struck out the first and third batters of the inning, sandwiched around a tremendous defensive play from shortstop Tyler Shaw, who ranged deep behind the second base bag, spun a 180 and nailed the runner at first base.

“I think I did pretty well. I struggled the last couple of times out,” Ghiorso said. “I try to get my fastball located well — up, down, in out. I try to keep movement (on my pitches) so they’re not flat. Flat pitches can fly out.”

After that, it was Falk’s turn to shine. He needed only 11 pitches to get through the sixth inning, retiring the side in order.

In the seventh, however, Falk ran into the biggest trouble of the day. After getting the first out of the inning on a line drive to center, Cymrot came up with an infield hit. Shaw, again, ranged behind the second-base bag, and again spun a 180. But this time, the runner beat his throw at first base.

Following a Falk strikeout for the second out, he walked the Trevor Haskins to bring up Fairweather. Falk jumped ahead 0-2, but Fairweather eventually worked the count full — even going so far as to try and steal a walk when he bolted down the first-base line following ball three.

He returned to the batter’s box and eventually flew out to Kannon Clayton in center field to give Falk his first save of the season.

“That was fantastic,” Ghiorso said of Falk’s performance.

The game’s lone run came in the bottom of the fourth, as Serra managed only four hits against Zobac, who threw a complete game. Tommy Gould led off with an infield hit and moved to second on a Marek Paladino sacrifice bunt. Falk followed and reached when the Valley Christian shortstop booted the grounder to him to put runners on first and second.

Following a strikeout for the second out of the inning, No. 8 hitter Omar Barrazza came up and hit a slow chopper to shortstop. The defender did a good job of nabbing the ball on the short hop, but his throw on the run to first base was in the dirt, which got away from the first baseman and allowed Gould to score.

“I was saying we just needed to get one run and then try to add on,” Ghiorso said. “One is all we needed today.”

The win avenged a 10-0 loss to the Warriors back on March 15, which sent Serra on a four-game slide.

But Thursday’s win was the fifth in a row for the Padres, who will face a gauntlet next weeks with road games against St. Francis and Mitty — both of which beat the Padres during their slide.

But the Padres are playing with a lot of confidence right now.

“We’ve been playing better the last two weeks,” Houle said. “We kind of expected to play this way (Thursday). We’re a little different team than we were at the beginning of the season.”