DIVISION 3-A BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : Mira Mesa, Bonita Vista Advance

Mira Mesa catcher Karl Goins took a little good-natured ribbing from his teammates Saturday, and he deserved it.

Then again, Goins really wouldn’t mind being in a similar situation Wednesday when Mira Mesa takes on Bonita Vista in the 3-A championship of the San Diego Section baseball playoffs at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Mira Mesa routed Montgomery, 9-4, in one semifinal Saturday. Bonita Vista survived eight errors and beat Mar Vista, 6-4, in the other semifinal. Both were played at Southwestern College with about 1,000 fans looking on.

Unseeded Bonita Vista (20-8-2) will be making its first 3-A final appearance. The Barons’ first and only title shot came in the 1975 2-A final, but they lost to Hoover, 11-4. Mar Vista, which had the tying run on base in the bottom of the seventh, finished 19-9-2.

With its 11th consecutive playoff victory, third-seeded Mira Mesa (25-5) will be going for a record third consecutive 3-A championship. Having also won in 1985, the Marauders are 3-0 in title games.

Second-seeded Montgomery, which finished 25-4, was drilled for six runs in the first and two more in the second. Mira Mesa might have had more, but . . .

Goins, who bats second, made the second and third outs in the first inning , and he was the last of nine Marauder starters to collect a hit. He finally got one in the third inning, but by then, Brian Wilson and Chris Lilly had two apiece.

Goins took it all in stride: “I turned to the leadoff guy (Daryle Owen) my second time up and said, ‘Oh no! I’m going to make two outs this inning.’ He said, ‘It’s either me or you.’ ”

Kidding aside, Goins actually hit the hardest ball of the first inning, sending Aztec right fielder Alex Palacio to the warning track with his first swing off starter Oscar Robles (7-3).

Brendan Hause then singled. Wilson singled. Coleman Mullin singled. Chris Moeller reached on an error. Lilly singled. Bobby Arban singled. David Lundberg singled.

Senior left-hander Julio Saldana replaced sophomore right-hander Robles.

Owen singled. Goins popped to third. Six runs, seven hits, one error.

Mira Mesa beat Montgomery in last year’s championship, 7-0. The Marauders’ first-inning line went six runs, six hits, one error.

“That did cross my mind,” Hause said. “But that rally last year started with no outs. This one was amazing.”

Another difference was that Saturday’s rally only gave Mira Mesa a 6-2 lead.

Because high schools limit pitchers to 30 outs and/or three appearances per week, Hause could throw only 6 2/3 innings Saturday. That prompted Marauder Coach Mike Prosser to start Ryan Cunningham, but he left after three batters.

Montgomery’s Jose Lorenzana led off with a walk, Robles tripled off the base of the right-field fence, and Eduardo Duarte singled to right to make it 2-0. Enter Hause. Two pickoffs and a strikeout later, it was Mira Mesa’s turn to rally.

Despite being replaced twice himself and re-entering twice, Hause pitched 6 2/3 innings and ran his record to 12-1.

Said Prosser of his five pitching changes: “We knew we had to get an out somewhere so we tried to pick a spot where it wouldn’t hurt--like with two outs and nobody on. It just took us a while to get it. I didn’t want to get caught having to get that other out in the seventh inning.”

Bonita Vista (eight errors) and Mar Vista (seven) had trouble getting outs all day.

Mar Vista got three hits off Randy Robinson in the first three innings, but that was it. Jorge Millan (9-1) pitched the next three innings, and Mike Daniels the seventh to earn his third save.

Millan (three for four, four RBIs) and Rohn Battle (three for four) were the hitting stars.

After taking a 1-0 lead in the first, Mar Vista scored its next three runs without the benefit of a hit. Bonita Vista’s big inning--a four-run fourth--stemmed from two hits, two errors, a walk and a sacrifice fly.

“It was a game where both teams scored when they shouldn’t have, and neither did when they should have,” Bonita Vista Coach Bill Getz correctly stated. “It wasn’t one of our best games.”