Foothill Rallies for Title

Second chances are difficult to come by, but when you can make the most of them, there’s nothing better. Just ask Justin Uribe or Brian Oda.

The Santa Ana Foothill seniors were each given another opportunity to shine -- both this season and during their Southern Section Division II baseball championship game Saturday -- and they took advantage, leading the Knights to their first section title.

Uribe hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning that tied the score against La Canada St. Francis, and Oda hit a solo homer in the eighth that gave Foothill (27-4) a 4-3 victory at Angel Stadium.

Oda quit playing baseball after his freshman year so he could concentrate on football. After sitting out two seasons, he realized last summer that he missed playing.

Oda popped up in his first at-bat, walked in his second and, with one out and the go-ahead run on third after Uribe’s tying home run, struck out on a checked swing.

“I told [Oda] he was going to do something special in his next at-bat,” Uribe said.

Luke Collis (7-2) relieved right-hander Christian Bergman to start the eighth for St. Francis, and Oda, who hit a three-run homer in the sixth to beat Los Angeles Loyola, 3-1, in the quarterfinals, hit a two-out homer to the right of the 387-foot sign in left field, his ninth of the season.

Uribe, who signed with UCLA last fall after earning Sea View League most-valuable-player honors as a junior, sat out two months of the season because of an elbow injury. He had only five hits in 21 at-bats since his return May 5, and he had never homered as a member of Foothill’s varsity team.

After striking out in his first two plate appearances, he stepped into the box for the third time against Bergman, who had allowed only two balls to be hit out of the infield. With one swing, he pulled the ball into the right-field seats, tying the score at 3-3.

“The pitcher was just throwing fastballs all day and I was looking bad,” said Uribe, who was the designated hitter. “I got off the plate a little bit and he left one up and I was lucky enough to get the good part of the bat on it.”

St. Francis (25-5), which blew a four-run lead in the top of seventh of its semifinal against West Torrance before winning in nine innings, scored its runs in the fourth inning against Brad Boxberger (12-0).

Taylor Smale drove in the first run with an opposite-field single to right and came home on Andrew Sember’s triple over the head of Oda in left.

Sember scored on a double to right center by Ramiro Carreon, who had only two extra-base hits in 61 at-bats coming into the game.

Boxberger, a right-hander who signed with USC, gave up a single in each of the next four innings but kept St. Francis from mounting any further rallies.