The Point Loma High School (PLHS) Pointers baseball team wrapped up the regular season with a 9-7 victory over University City High on May 21, motoring into a first-round playoff matchup with Oceanside High on Tuesday, May 26. The Pointers triumphed in resounding fashion in the CIF Division II battle Tuesday, 13-0. The victory set up the next playoff round yesterday, May 27 against Westview High. Results were unavailable at press time. Last Thursday’s win over UC High improved the team’s regular season record to 18-10 overall and 6-6 in the Western League and snapped a seven-game slide for PLHS. “We started off 17-3 this year and, offensively, our bats were hot,” said PLHS head baseball coach Jon Posternack. “But then we dropped two tough games to Cathedral. We played them tough at home but lost 7-6. After that, we went into a slump. Sometimes you’re hot, sometimes you’re not.” In the first 20 games of the 2009 season, the Pointers outscored their opponents 161-97. But during the seven-game losing streak, PLHS was outscored 50-22. Four players hit over .300: senior Coleman Cox (.366), senior Patrick dela Garza (.355), senior Ridge Deakman (.355) and junior Zach Skarbic (.375). Sophomore Campbell Wear led the team’s on-base percentage at .513. The Pointers also had two of the top five pitchers in overall wins in the Western League. The Pointers pitching staff was led by a pair of underclassmen — sophomore Kellen Urbon and freshman Connor Baits. Urbon led the team and the Western League in wins with 8 and went 8-1 overall, while Baits contributed five wins. “Connor went 5-5 but he could have easily been 7-3 if we were hitting better in those games,” Posternack said. Despite the struggle down the stretch, Point Loma won 18 games for the first time since the 2001 season and achieved its best record under Posternack. Since his arrival in 2005, the Pointers improved all around, going from 13-17 in 2006 to 17-15 in 2007, slipping in 2008 to 16-16. But the 18-10 record in 2009 shows the program is back on track. The Western League was as strong as ever this year, with six of the seven teams over .500 and three teams with at least 18 victories. The Cathedral Dons (10-2) emerged as league champions while defending co-league champion Coronado finished a game behind (9-3). Defending back-to-back co-Western League champion Mission Bay (3-9) finished tied for last this year. Every team from the Western League qualified for the playoffs this year, with Cathedral and Coronado qualifying as No. 1 seeds in Division 3 and 4, respectively. “This was the best season that we have had in years,” Posternack said. “Even though it was frustrating because we couldn’t win a game for a couple of weeks, the guys fought hard and we got off to one of our best starts ever in the regular season.”