Harbor Baseball Team Ready to State Its Case in Regional : Colleges: The third-seeded Seahawks open play against 15th-seeded Long Beach City College on Friday.

Harbor College’s baseball team will play host for one of two Southern California Regional playoff finals beginning at 11 a.m. Friday. The winner of the four-team series will advance to the state championship tournament May 29-31 in Sacramento.

“We’re really confident we can win a state title,” said Harbor second baseman David Rosato, a graduate of South Torrance High. “That was our goal at the start of the season and we’re not going to stop playing hard till we get there. Right now we’re playing at our top. We peaked at the right time.”

The third-seeded Seahawks (30-11) will open the double-elimination tournament against 15th-seeded Long Beach City College (21-18). Seventh-seeded San Diego Mesa (29-14) and sixth-seeded Orange Coast College (26-17) will meet at 3 p.m. Play continues Saturday at 10 a.m. with the final scheduled for Sunday at 11 a.m.

Harbor was pushed to the limit by Pierce College in the first round of the regional playoffs last weekend, but the Seahawks won the best-of-three series with a 15-11 victory in the third game.

The Seahawks, ranked third in the state, defeated 14th-seeded Pierce, 18-5, in the opener, but Pierce forced a third game by winning Game 2, 9-6.

Sophomore infielder Tristan Paul, a graduate of Rolling Hills High, led the Seahawks with three home runs and eight runs batted in. Paul hit a grand slam in the first game and back-to-back home runs in the third game.

Freshman catcher Jeff Poor, who attended El Segundo High, had six RBIs and scored three runs and sophomore center fielder Rolando Avila had five RBIs and scored six runs.

Sophomore Clint Lynch (6-2) and Mark Chavez (3-3), a freshman from Banning High, were the winning pitchers. Lynch, a 5-foot-11 right-hander, will start against Long Beach.

The Seahawks are 3-1 against the South Coast Conference rival Vikings. Long Beach led the league most of the season, but lost 10 of its last 14 games and finished third. Harbor won the title in its first season in the league.

“We have an edge against them because we beat them three times,” Harbor Coach Tony Bloomfield said. “But I think it will come down to who makes the plays on defense. It should be a low-scoring game.”

Right-hander Jake Viano, who pitched in Long Beach’s 3-0 victory against Harbor in late March, is expected to start. Viano (9-2) led the conference with a 1.90 earned-run average.

“Long Beach is a good team,” Rosato said. “We managed to take three out of four in the regular season, but we need to come out and battle hard to win this one.”

The losers of Friday’s games will meet at 10 a.m. Saturday at a site to be determined. The winners will play at 11 a.m. at Harbor.