San Fernando Has a Lost Day in City Playoffs : High school softball: Tigers re-routed by bus driver en route and are routed later by San Pedro, 14-1. The bus for the ride home arrives an hour late.

Thursday was one long, tedious and tiresome day for the San Fernando High softball team.

Consider the Tigers’ plight: A two-hour bus ride to San Pedro with a bus driver that got lost in Pacoima for half an hour, a demoralizing 14-1 loss to San Pedro in a City Section Division 4-A quarterfinal-round playoff game and, of course, another bus ride back to San Fernando in rush-hour traffic on a bus that showed up nearly an hour late to pick up the worn-out Tigers.

“Oh, we’re having a great time,” San Fernando Coach Bill Reilly said sarcastically as he sipped on a soda and waited for the bus to show up.

It was the Tigers however, who were all but missing from their game with the defending 4-A champion Pirates. San Pedro pounded 15 hits, while the Tigers managed only two off petite Petrina Martinez (12-1), a 5-foot-2, 120-pound junior who struck out 10 in six innings.

This clearly was not the same Tiger team that just two days earlier upset perennial power El Camino Real, 3-2, in the first round.

“I knew the bus ride would really hurt us,” Reilly said. “We were off. Everything was a step slow.”

Top-seeded San Pedro (24-3), which has not lost to a City team in two seasons, bunched five hits in the second inning for a commanding 6-0 lead and the rest of the game became just a formality.

Victoria Brucker was the Tigers’ biggest problem. Brucker, who went three for four with seven runs batted in, hit a three-run home run to cap the scoring in the second. In the fifth with the bases loaded, Brucker ripped a long line drive that dropped just inside the left-field foul line and ended up with an inside-the-park grand slam to give San Pedro a 13-1 lead.

Brucker hit so well, Reilly was seeing double. He thought Brucker had hit two grand slams.

“All I know was there was a lot of hoofs, a lot of feet crossing that plate after she hit the ball,” Reilly said.

San Fernando (10-13), which finished second in the North Valley League, scored in the fifth inning when Martinez walked Lisa Servera with the bases loaded and two out. Gracey Ramirez, who led off the inning with a single, scored the Tigers’ only run.

Lorena Hernandez and Ramirez were the only Tigers to manage hits off Martinez.