BASEBALL: St. Francis Shocked By Carlmont

All eyes were on the St. Francis High-Mountain View baseball team for the majority of the 2011 regular season. The nationally-ranked West Catholic Athletic League champion won 25 games this season en route to a No. 1 seed in the stacked Central Coast Section Division I baseball bracket.

On Wednesday afternoon, the dreams of a lengthy playoff run came crashing down in a first round matchup against No. 16 seed Carlmont High-Belmont.

The Scots rallied late to stun the host Lancers, winning 4-3 to defeat the mighty No. 1 seed on its home turf.

St. Francis starting pitcher Alex Blandino hit a two-run home run in the third to give the hosts a 2-1 lead. Carlmont pulled even in the fourth when Anthony scored on Blandino’s two-out balk.

A Trevor Bettencourt RBI single drove in George Saba in the sixth to pull the Lancers back on top, 3-2.

 St. Francis, the West Catholic Athletic League champion, and reliever Kevin Zhang were one out away from locking up a 3-2 victory. With two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the seventh inning, Carlmont’s Justin Fink found just the right spot with a ball that went for a game-tying infield single and then an error that allowed the go-ahead run to score. The tough play, if executed perfectly, would have been the final out.

St. Francis second baseman Bettencourt fielded the ball and threw toward first, but the throw handcuffed first baseman Richard Prigatano, who had to scamper back to the bag after first making a play on the grounder. The ball got away, allowing both Willie Baroncini and Kyle Barret to score. With two outs, Barret had been running on contact from second base.

The visiting Scots (19-8) became the first No. 16 seed to topple the top seed in the Division I playoffs in 12 years.

Carlmont starter Daniel Madigan went the distance, pitching the biggest complete game win of his life.

Patch.com Peninsula Sports Editor Scott Campbell contributed to this report……..