Baseball: Trask, Papavasiliou Power Arcadia Into Semifinals

Normally in complete control on the mound, Arcadia senior KJ Edson was stuck in an unfamiliar situation Friday.

Limited to just 4 2/3 innings against Garden Grove Pacifica in the quarterfinals of the Division 2 playoffs after he threw 5 1/3 in a second round win over Alemany, Edson had to watch the last bit of the Apaches’ battle against Mariners from the visitors' dugout at Pacifica High School.

Edson admitted after the game the whole experience as a spectator was nerve-wracking. But teams don’t advance this far this in postseason just because of one player, and the Apaches proved they are much more than a one-man show in the final innings against the Mariners.

Erik Trask led off the top of the seventh with a double into the right field corner, and George Papavasiliou drove him in for the eventual game-winning run with one-out double to deep center.

Trask also pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief and worked his way around a leadoff double in the bottom half of the seventh to lead the Apaches into the semifinals with a 2-1 win. The semifinals berth is the school's first since 1987, and they host Etiwanda next Tuesday at a time to be determined.

“It’s not one person — it’s a total team effort,” Arcadia coach Nick Lemas said. “It might look from an outside observer’s standpoint that KJ is the one and only guy. But as you can see with Jeff Kim on Tuesday and then Erik today, we’ve got more than one arm on the mound.”

That was clearly the case Friday as there was no drop off when Trask relieved Edson with two outs in the bottom of the fifth after Edson had limited the Mariners (24-8) to one run on two hits all while pitching on two days rest.

Despite the quick turnaround, Edson said his arm felt good throughout the game. He only encountered trouble in the second after a single and an error gave the Mariners runners at first and third with one out.

But after the Mariners tied the game at one with an infield single from right fielder Jordan Ellis, Edson got Pacifica’s Matt Gilbody to ground into a 1-6-2 double play to escape the inning. Edson then retired the final eight batters he faced before handing the game over to Trask.

“I know they're aggressive, that was scouting report,” Edson said. “We knew that they'd swing early in the count. I just had to throw strikes and get in the zone.”

Trask struck out the first batter he faced to end the fifth and then induced a ground ball to shortstop Tyler Dominguez, who turned an inning-ending double play, as the Apaches left the sixth with the score still knotted at one.

“I just knew I had to go in there, throw strikes and not try to be too fine because if I started getting wild and falling behind they'd start hitting me a little more,” Trask said.

Trask then walked up to the plate in the top of the seventh and ripped an opposite-field double on the first pitch he saw from Pacifica starter Kyle Davis, who had given up just one run and two hits through the previous six innings.

“I knew that since it was late in the game they'd have to throw strikes and not fall behind,” Trask said. “So I just sat on it and was ready.”

Two batters later, Papavasiliou followed Trask’s lead and hammered the first pitch of his at-bat over the Pacifica centerfielder’s head to give the Apaches a 2-1 lead. with his second RBI of the game.

The Mariners made the Apaches (26-3) sweat the final three outs of the game, though, as Davis led off the bottom of the seventh with a double, prompting a quick mound visit from Lemas. 

Lemas said he wanted to remind Trask that the Apaches still held the lead, and it was likely that the Mariners would try to bunt pinch-runner Ricky Brito over to third base.

But rather than panic, Trask beared down, striking out the next batter to keep Brito stranded at second.

“It’s huge,” Lemas said. “You get a runner at third base with one out there’s a lot of ways to score him. Being able to keep him at second base and getting an out; it was the game for us.”

Indeed the play was a pivotal point in the inning, especially after Trask threw a wild pitch during an at-bat against Pacifica catcher Cody Bistline with two outs. Had Brito been at third on the play, the Mariners likely would have tied the game.

Trask brushed off the wild pitch and recorded his second strikeout of the inning to end the game with the tying run at third and set off a massive celebration on the pitcher’s mound.

The team that for so long couldn't escape the first round is now one win away from playing for a divisional title.

“This is definitely the biggest game of my career,” Trask said. “It's great because the past six years we haven't been able to get past the first round. We're going places this year. We want to keep it going and make it to Dodger Stadium.”