SANTA ANA ELKS TOURNAMENT : Gahr Scores Eight in Sixth, Beats Pacifica

Cerritos Gahr scored eight runs in the sixth inning to defeat Pacifica, 8-1, in the championship semifinals of the Santa Ana Elks Easter baseball tournament Tuesday at Santa Ana Valley.

Pacifica (6-7) will meet George Marshall (Va.) for third place at 3 p.m. today at Santa Ana High School.

The Mariners broke a scoreless battle in the top of the sixth before Gahr battered four Pacifica pitchers in the bottom of the inning.

Jeff DePippo opened the sixth for Pacifica with a walk and took second on a sacrifice by Erik Maurer. Eric Martinez was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second. Chad Brown, who struck out in his first two at-bats for only the third and fourth times this season, doubled down the left-field line to score DePippo and raise his team-leading batting average to .469.

Gahr came back in the bottom of the inning with eight runs on five hits, but Pacifica Coach Brian Flatten was more concerned about his battered pitching staff.

Maurer, who entered the game in the fifth inning, left with a muscle pull after facing four batters in the sixth. He has been with the team only a couple of weeks, because he was a member of the Mariners’ basketball team that reached the State final.

Maurer removed himself from the game with a 1-2 count on a batter.

“It is too early to know how he is,” Flatten said.

Scott Foley and Corey Volk also were ineffective before Scott Nelson came in to get the final out of the inning.

Flatten was pleased with the performance of starter Adam Peters, who pitched four scoreless innings, allowing three hits and retiring the final six batters he faced.

“We had scheduled a certain number of pitches for him,” said Flatten, noting that they were working on Peters’ pitching mechanics. He threw 52 pitches.

In other tournament games:

Orange 11, Foothill 10--Nick Estrada had three hits, scored two runs and drove in three runs for Orange (8-4). Estrada had nine consecutive hits dating to Monday’s first round before reaching base on an error in the fifth inning.

Santa Ana 3, Redlands 2--Oscar Miranda pitched a five-hitter, striking out, and also had an RBI triple for host Santa Ana (3-8). Tony Mier had an RBI single for Santa Ana.

Saddleback 8, Valencia 4--Sam Perla had three hits with two RBIs for Saddleback (6-6-1).