Win Gives Peninsula a Share of Bay League Title : Preps: Panthers’ ninth consecutive victory draws them closer to league’s No. 1 seeding in Southern Section playoffs.

Normally a three-run lead in the last inning affords a baseball team a little breathing room. But for Peninsula High on Wednesday, the situation called for holding one’s breath.

Santa Monica brought the tying run to the plate in the form of cleanup batter Sheldon Philip-Guide with two outs and runners on first and second in the top of the seventh inning. Philip-Guide had homered in his previous at-bat and had also tripled.

Peninsula reliever Jeff Adams had served up Philip-Guide’s sixth-inning solo home run on a belt-high slider over the plate. This time, though, Adams was determined to even the score. Or, in this case, to prevent Santa Monica from evening the score.

After working the count to 3-2, Philip-Guide flied out to center fielder Darwin Baltazar as host Peninsula held on for a 5-2 victory that clinched at least a tie for the Bay League title.

“I tried to keep the ball low,” said Adams, who gave up one run and two hits in pitching the final 2 1/3 innings. “He jacked the ball when I got it up on him. (The second time) I tried to jam him. He popped it up, luckily.”

Adams’ effort helped Peninsula (18-6, 10-1 in league) take a 1 1/2-game lead over Santa Monica (14-7, 8-2) in the Bay standings. The teams meet again at 3 p.m. Friday at Santa Monica. If the Vikings win, they would then have to beat Leuzinger in a makeup game at 9 a.m. Saturday at Santa Monica to gain a share of the league championship.

If Peninsula and Santa Monica tie for the title, Santa Monica would get the league’s No. 1 entry into the Southern Section playoffs because of winning the league series, two games to one.

But after Wednesday’s victory, Peninsula co-coach Gil Eberhard felt good about the Panthers’ chances of beating the Vikings again on Friday.

“This gives us momentum and that’s important,” he said.

It was the ninth consecutive victory for the Panthers, who had nine hits in handing Santa Monica left-hander Mark Miller (9-1) his first loss. Jason Brown led Peninsula with two hits and a run batted in, and Mark Whiley drove in two runs.

Sophomore right-hander Brian Bowles (5-3) combined with left-hander Rob Knepper and Adams, a senior right-hander, to limit Santa Monica to six hits. The 6-foot-4 Bowles, son of Peninsula assistant principal Chris Bowles, gave up three hits in pitching the first four innings.

Peninsula also benefited from strong defense. The Panthers turned double plays in the third and fourth innings and Baltazar made a diving catch in shallow center field to end a rally in the second inning.

“That’s a pretty good ballclub,” said Peninsula co-coach Garry Poe, pointing to Santa Monica. “They hit the ball where it’s pitched.”

But Poe acknowledged that Peninsula has come a long way since losing to Santa Monica, 8-4, on April 3.

“We’re a better team than when we played them the first time,” he said. “We didn’t play catch last time.”

This time, it was Santa Monica that suffered from mistakes. The Vikings ran themselves out of two innings with base-running blunders and they committed two errors in the third when Peninsula scored two runs to take the lead for good, 3-1.

“We lost two runs because of poor base-running and we gave them their first three runs because of poor defense and concentration,” Santa Monica Coach Jose Lopez said. “Take that away, and we should have won, 4-2.”

With the score tied, 1-1, Phil Riggio, Peninsula’s No. 9 batter, led off the third with a looping double inside the right-field line. Baltazar followed with a bunt that Philip-Guide, the third baseman, fielded and threw wide of first base, allowing Riggio to score. Baltazar took second on the throw home and advanced to third when no one covered the base.

After two outs, Baltazar scored on a bouncing single up the middle by Whiley, who had driven in Peninsula’s first run on a ground-ball out in the first inning.

The Panthers extended their lead to 4-1 in the fifth on a double by Scott Poe and an RBI single by Brown. After Santa Monica got a run back in the sixth, Peninsula made it 5-2 in the bottom of the inning on doubles by Chris Blandford and Rich Radford.

The rest was up to Adams, who entered the game with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth. He ended the threat by striking out Paul Casillas, Santa Monica’s No. 3 batter, on a 2-2 pitch.

San Pedro 11, Banning 4--Danny O’Neill drove in four runs on two singles to help the Pirates end Banning’s two-year reign as Pacific League champion with a title-clinching victory at San Pedro.

It represents the first league title for San Pedro (17-4, 14-2) since 1989. Banning (13-8, 11-4) is in second place.

O’Neill tied the score, 2-2, with a two-run single in the second inning and gave the Pirates a 6-2 lead with another two-run single in the third. In all, San Pedro had 10 hits in a game that favored the hitters.

“It’s a different game on our field,” San Pedro Coach Jerry Lovarov said. “The wind was really blowing.”

Banning pitchers walked five batters and San Pedro left-hander Jamie Smith (7-2), who went the distance, walked six.

Rino Marconi had two hits and two RBIs for the Pirates and sophomore Tim Harper had a triple, a double and an RBI filling in for second baseman Isaac Lope, who suffered a sprained ankle.

West Torrance 15, South Torrance 0--The Warriors stayed in contention for a share of the Pioneer League title with an easy victory at South. West (17-6, 9-2) needs a victory at home against South (10-8, 6-4) on Friday to tie Torrance for the championship.

El Segundo 8, St. Francis 7--The host Eagles, who trailed 7-0, capped their winning rally on Lawrence Norris’ solo homer in the bottom of the seventh inning. El Segundo is 24-2 and 9-0 in the San Fernando League and St. Francis is 9-9 and 8-1.