Baseball: Pacific League title comes down to final game tonight

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Arcadia (15-9, 11-2) and Crescenta Valley (17-5, 11-2) will battle for first place in the Pacific League, bragging rights and playoff seeding at 7 tonight at Casey Stengel Field.

On the mound for Arcadia will be Bryce Rutherford (7-2), who’s only a junior but is the Apaches’ best player, some coaches tell me. On top of 92 strikeouts in 56 innings, Rutherford has a batting average of .359 and is second on the team with 18 RBIs.

Crescenta Valley, I’m told, is a deeper team than Arcadia, and is better all around but that may not matter much for one game. If Rutherford is on his game, there may be nothing the Falcons can do.

They’ve only played one other time this season, a 2-0 affair that Crescenta Valley won on April 4. Rutherford was on the mound for that one and took the loss, despite striking out 11.

-- Jaime Cardenas