San Carlos JD keeps on rolling

San Carlos fumbled and bumbled routine ground balls, constantly swung at pitches in a different zip code and, worse yet, seemed lifeless in defeat. But veteran coach Bud Papadakis knew better. The 14th-year San Carlos skipper had faith that once his top players came back, the program would get back to its winning ways.

Now it looks unbeatable. San Carlos edged visiting South San Francisco 3-2 at Burton Park on Tuesday to earn its 13th consecutive victory. San Carlos (16-7 overall, 8-5), which on Sunday won the 4th of July Yountville Tournament, sits in second-place, a game and a half behind Millbrae.

San Carlos went 5-0 in Yountville and was led by tournament MVP Mike Rivera, who batted a sizzling .585. Chris Davidson, Daniel Descalso, Kevin Dos Remidos, Chris Armanino and Ken Turner were named to the all-tournament team.

Against South City, San Carlos relied on an effective start from Davidson (six innings of two-run ball), clutch hitting from Turner and a sensational relief effort from Descalso, who came on in the seventh with no outs and runners on first and second base. He got a strikeout and induced a game-ending 6-4-3 double play, started by a nice scoop play from shortstop Armanino.

The win was made possible by Turner, who belted a two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning over the dilapidated, green scoreboard in left-center field. Initially, Turner was instructed to get a bunt down and advance Brian Belli to second. But a wild pitch gave Belli a free pass to second and allowed Turner to swing for the fences.

"I was actually just trying to get the run in anyway I could," Turner said. "We just wanted to come out and carry over our momentum from Napa. We all like to play together and recently we started talking a lot more in the dugout. We'll say stuff that might make other teams mad, but it makes the game more fun."

Early on, it looked as if San Carlos would have no trouble in putting South City away, a team it beat 13-1 last week. Rivera led off the bottom of the first with a triple and scored on Descalso's sacrifice-fly.

After an Armanino fly-out, Wade Reynoso, Ryan Scoma and Belli all singled to load the bases. Turner then hit a ball that looked like a sure-fire single, but the South City right-fielder made a diving, highlight-reel catch to end the inning. Belli was the only San Carlos player with two hits as San Carlos was outhit, 9-7. The teams committed two errors each.

"When you're hot, you win games like this," Papadakis said. "We were ripping the ball in the first inning and when you do that, you tend to swing too hard in the later innings and not get the result you're looking for. I've never had this much depth pitching-wise. We scored 47 runs in Yountville and allowed only eight. We won the tournament because we have five quality starters."