BASEBALL: Confident Cougars Win CCS Opener

The Half Moon Bay High baseball team came back from an early 2-0 deficit to defeat No. 12 seed Monte Vista Christian 5-3 in the first round of the Central Coast Section Division III playoffs Wednesday.

In the Cougars’ most recent postseason trip, they were eliminated in the Division III semifinals by Monte Vista Christian 8-5 two years ago.

HMB senior Julian Garcia remembered that loss well, and he did not disappoint on Wednesday.

He threw 5 1/3 innings and kept his team in the game, allowing the fifth-seeded Cougars to come back after falling behind 2-0 in the second inning.

Garcia entered the game against Monte Vista Christian (16-12) with a 1.42 ERA.

“Julian was the only one on that team,” Half Moon Bay coach Steve Terraszas said of the 2009 club. “That was pretty big.

“Beating them today was really gratifying.”

The Cougars (22-6) advance to face fourth-seeded Soquel (17-8-1) in a quarterfinal on Saturday at a time and place to be announced. Terraszas’ confidence is sky high.

Half Moon Bay has beaten other CCS teams, such as Sacred Heart Prep and Santa Cruz, and the coach thinks his team’s bond is part of that confidence.

“We’ve been together for a long time,” Terraszas said. “Most have played together since Little League.”

Half Moon Bay will send out David Moody, who came in during the sixth inning to pick up the save Wednesday, to start against highly-touted Soquel.

Moody ranks second on the team with 60 strikeouts, to go along with a 1.47 ERA entering Wednesday.

Soquel’ s Izaak Silva entered the playoffs with four home runs, 20 RBIs and a .387 average.

“We know we’re playing the best team we’ve seen all year,” Terraszas said. “We got a good chance (to win).”