Patrick Henry Rolls, Faces Monte Vista Next

Patrick Henry, in the midst of constructing the house that confidence built, has added another story.

In a San Diego Section 3-A baseball quarterfinal game Thursday against visiting Orange Glen, Patrick Henry put the hammer down early, scoring two runs in the first inning and five in the second and coasting to a 10-2 victory.

Patrick Henry has every reason to believe the next addition could be a victory over Monte Vista--which upset top-seeded Poway, 7-6, Thursday--in a semifinal Saturday at 11 a.m. at the University of San Diego.

After all, Patrick Henry jolted from a deep sleep and a 1-3 start in the City Eastern League to tie Point Loma for the league title. The Patriots have now won nine of their past 11 games.

“We’re so confident right now,” said right fielder Dino Distefano, who went three for four, drove in two runs and pitched 5 2/3 innings of relief. “All through league, we built our confidence. We think we can beat everyone. We’re 100%, 180 degrees confident.”

Those are happy words, but Patrick Henry endured many discouraging ones first.

“We were playing awful,” Coach Bob Imlay said. “We had terrible defense and average pitching, so I decided to make some changes. They’ve seemed to work for us.”

Sure they have. Imlay moved John Dutra from the outfield to second base, Luke Lowrey from second to first and the whole defense back, back, back.

Initially, Imlay’s changes were met with little acceptance and a lot of hesitation.

“We didn’t like it,” Distefano said. “We were griping to each other about it for a while.”

That ended when the victories overshadowed the losses.

“I don’t care if we lose when we get beat,” Imlay said. “But we weren’t making easy plays, we weren’t playing good defense, and we weren’t hitting. I knew they could swing the bats.”

Thursday, Patrick Henry swung well enough to get 14 hits off three Orange Glen pitchers. Leadoff hitter Eric Feffer picked up two hits, two RBIs and scored once, Dutra was two for four and scored twice and Jeff Williams got two hits, including a triple, stole a base and scored twice.

Rob Mendez (5-2) gave up four of Orange Glen’s six hits, one run and walked two. Distefano gave up just two hits but walked two batters in the fifth before settling down.

“We haven’t used him much, and he didn’t pitch at all last year,” Imlay said. “He started out a little nervous, but he came through.”

In other 3-A quarterfinals:

Monte Vista 7, Poway 6--Neil Svalstud went four for four with three RBIS, including the game-winning single in the seventh and a two-run double in the sixth for Monte Vista (19-11-1). Eddie Thompson went three for four with an RBI and Brock Marsh went two for three for Poway (20-6-1).

Mt. Carmel 4, Montgomery 3 (8)--John Moon’s sacrifice fly scored Shane Whitt in the eighth inning with the winning run for Mt. Carmel (22-7). Eric Dockery and Whitt had two hits each, and Doug Hill, the fourth Mt. Carmel pitcher, threw a hitless eighth to pick up the victory. Mt. Carmel plays Mira Mesa at 2 p.m. in Saturday’s semifinals at the University of San Diego. Montgomery, seeded third, finished 21-9.

Mira Mesa 5, RBV 0--Jaime Escamilla hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning to give 15th-seeded Mira Mesa (20-7) a 4-0 lead. Marc Nielsen followed up with a bases-empty homer in the seventh. Nielsen, who also hit an RBI triple, struck out seven, walked none and allowed five hits.