The Inland Valley Pirates took Game 1 of the SBL semifinals over the Solana Beach Cardinals 4-3 at Torrey Pines High School on Tuesday afternoon.
After falling behind 2-0 on a Cole Klemke two-run homer, Inland Valley responded with two of their own in the fourth on three consecutive base hits. Alberto Vargas and Brennan McKenzie scored in the inning. Jonathan de Marte knocked in an RBI, but he was just getting started.
The Pirates tacked on another run in the fifth on an RBI single by Vargas scoring Mario Micketti to break a 2-2 tie.
De Marte blasted a home run over the left field fence to extend the margin to 4-2 in the top of the sixth.
Solana Beach cut the deficit in half to just one in the bottom of the inning, but the Pirates held on.
All three pitchers for the Pirates did well as Charlie Verrone earned the victory tossing the first five innings, Jake Geck pitched the sixth and seventh and Nathan Gilman was electric in his two shutout innings en route to the save.
Game 2 is scheduled for Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at Cal Poly Pomona.
| Pirates | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | Pitcher | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | ERA |
| 14 |  Verrone, C |
5.0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 3.38 |
| 26 |  Gilman, N |
2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4.36 |
| 11 | Geck, J | 2.0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3.68 |
| 9 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | |||
| Pirates | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | Batter | P | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | AVG |
| 5 | Petrone, A | SS | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .283 |
| 31 | Marshall, L | C | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .274 |
| 1 | Vargas, A | C | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .292 |
| 10 | Mckenzie, B | 1B | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .362 |
| 8 | de Marte, J | 3B | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .257 |
| 21 | Katz, J | OF | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .294 |
| 17 | Luzzi, N | OF | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .260 |
| 34 | Bryant, J | 3B | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .167 |
| 29 | Cooper, Z | OF | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .279 |
| 12 | Jones, J | OF | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .174 |
| 2 | Torres, A | 2B | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .271 |
| 19 | Micketti, M | OF | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .300 |
| 28 | Barron, B | RF | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .238 |
| 15 | Wright, H | OF | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .228 |
| 36 | 6 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 7 | ||||
Batting
HP: M.Micketti (6).
HR: J.de Marte (2).
RBI: A.Vargas (7), J.de Marte 2 (13).
CS: J.de Marte (2).
SB: J.Jones 2 (13).