SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS : Capistrano Valley’s Petke Takes Calculating Approach to Game : Prep baseball: Outfielder, who has photographic memory, volunteered for leadoff duty and has a .330 average. Cougars play in 4-A quarterfinal today.

Capistrano Valley High School outfielder Jonathan Petke can calculate his batting average while rounding first base after a base hit.

Petke is a master of trivia who can recite career statistics of present and past major league baseball players.

Petke, who has a photographic memory, would be the perfect contestant on the game show “Jeopardy.” He breezed through the math portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, scoring 760 out of a possible 800.

But there is clearly one number that Petke can point to as the turning point for Capistrano Valley’s baseball team.

The Cougars were struggling with a 2-5-1 record in the South Coast League when they made a transition that has carried them into the quarterfinals of the Southern Section 4-A playoffs against top-seeded Arlington at 3:15 today.

“We were getting beat pretty badly,” Petke said. “Any mistakes we made seemed to snowball. We’d get pretty good pitching and nobody hit, or we’d hit and the pitching wasn’t there. There wasn’t much continuity.”

But something happened to turn Capistrano Valley’s season around. Petke says he can’t point to a single factor in the turnaround that has helped the Cougars win nine of their past 11 games.

Maybe it was the thought of missing the playoffs for a second consecutive year. Or maybe it was the leadership of first baseman Chris Lugo, who was named a team captain. Or maybe it was the competitiveness of a group of individuals that collectively brought the team together.

Petke thinks that a combination of factors helped Capistrano Valley reach today’s quarterfinals with four consecutive postseason victories.

“Our defense is a lot better with Chris Lugo at first base,” Petke said. “We were averaging about four errors a game, and I think we’ve made only three errors in four playoff games.

“Chris and Travis Burgus have become the leaders of this team. They helped us get to the playoffs, and now that we’re playing well, we don’t want the season to end. We can’t lose or the season is over. This is a very competitive group of guys who have a lot of pride.”

Petke is the first to admit that the team is anything but a close-knit group, but the common denominator is the team’s competitive desire.

Wednesday, Coach Bob Zamora conducted a bunting contest in which he placed a hula hoop near the mound and the players were instructed to bunt as many balls as possible into the hoop. The Cougars also competed in squeeze and hit-and-run drills.

“They were only games, but nobody wanted to lose,” Petke said.

Petke is a three-year starter for Capistrano Valley. He led the team in home runs and runs batted in last year, but moved to the leadoff spot this season because of an injury to another player. He’s batting .330 with 31 hits, 14 walks and 14 stolen bases.

“He’s the best hit-and-run man on the team,” Zamora said. “I sorely needed a leadoff man and he came to me and said, ‘Coach, I can do it.’ His average has suffered a little this year moving to leadoff, but Jonathan is a very team-oriented player, and I knew he would do whatever it would take to make us a winner.”

Petke is a product of winners. His grandfathers attended Dartmouth and Yale. His father attended Williams College in Massachusetts and his mother attended Skidmore College in New York.

Petke, who will graduate with a 3.94 grade-point average, will attend California on an athletic scholarship in the fall, where he plans to major in civil engineering. Petke turned down offers from Harvard and Yale to remain on the West Coast.

“Most of my relatives still live on the East Coast, so I really thought about going to Harvard or Yale,” he said. “But when it came down to a decision, the engineering program combined with the baseball at Cal was right for me.”

Petke hopes to someday design master-planned communities, following in the footsteps of his father. Presently, Petke has designs set on a section championship.

“The title game is the same night as our prom,” Petke said. “There’s nothing I’d like better than taking off my uniform at Anaheim Stadium and putting on a tuxedo to go to the prom that night.”