The La Jolla High varsity baseball team wrapped up the regular season by dropping a couple of tough Western League matches against Mission Bay last week. The Vikings wasted a brilliant pitching performance by Patrick Christensen as they fell 2-1 in 10 innings. Christensen tossed nine innings, allowing only one run on four hits while striking out nine. Stephen Foster put La Jolla up 1-0 in the fifth inning on a bases-loaded single. Mission Bay answered with one run in the sixth and won the game in the 10th inning. Sam Salom took the loss for La Jolla. La Jolla rallied from a 5-0 deficit to tie the Buccaneers at 5-5 before succumbing 7-5 in the other contest. Jake Linsky pitched well in relief but suffered a tough-luck loss. Linsky also drove in the first two runs with a single up the middle in the fourth inning. Kyle Zimmer and Robbie Beathard each had two hits in the loss. Despite the two losses, the Vikings still qualified for the Division III playoffs. They opened on the road at Valley Center Tuesday, May 26, winning 8-3. “We are very excited to be returning to the postseason again this year,” La Jolla High head coach Gary Frank remarked. “We hope to make the most of our opportunity. We’ve got the talent to go a long way in the playoffs; now it’s up to us to get the job done.” In other recent action, La Jolla Country Day (LJCD) School beat San Diego Jewish Academy 6-0 on a great pitching performance by senior Ben Cohn. Cohn scattered five hits over five scoreless innings, while Anthony Torres (sophomore) threw two scoreless innings of his own. Senior Ben Sweeney had two hits, and junior Derek Hatfield added his second home run of the season. LJCD also lost a 7-6 decision in 10 innings to Canyon Crest. With the score knotted at 6-6, LJCD’s Ruben Pena (sophomore) pitched the Torreys out of a jam in the bottom of the seventh to keep the score tied and went on to pitch two more scoreless innings. Canyon Crest won the game with two outs in the bottom of the 10th. Jason Gilberg (junior) pitched six strong innings for LJCD, yielding only one earned run. Connor Gerhart (junior) and Sweeney each had three hits. Pena, Gilberg, Frankie Brown (sophomore) and Roman Valenzuela (freshman) each had two. Brown also had four RBIs in the game with two huge hits.