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Palo Alto received the No. 2 seed in the Central Coast Section Division I baseball playoffs and will host No. 7 St. Francis on Saturday at 1 p.m.
“Our guys had a great season and they deserve it,’’ Paly coach Pete Fukuhara said. “It should be a lot of fun.’’
Menlo-Atherton (18-4) received the No. 5 seed in Division II and will play at No. 4 Leland (12-11), also on Saturday at 1.
Palo Alto (20-4) did not play St. Francis this season, but Fukuhara is plenty familiar with the program. He coached there for six years.
“I have a ton of respect for them,’’ he said. “They’re going to come into our place ready to play. They’re in a premier league and had to play Mitty and Valley Christian all year. They’re battle tested.’’
Mitty is the top seed in Division I and Valley Christian the No. 3 seed. The Palo Alto-St. Francis winner would take on the Valley Christian-Aptos winner Wednesday in a semifinal.
Fukuhara is pleased with his team’s improvement as the season unfolded, but Palo Alto, the SCVAL De Anza Division champion, hasn’t played since a 13-1 win over Cupertino on May 28.
“We’ve had some quality practices, but it’s hard to replicate game speed,’’ he said.
M-A, the PAL Ocean Division champion, will face a Leland team that went 9-5 in BVAL Mt. Hamilton Division play, tying for second place with Pioneer, 2 ½ games behind Live Oak, which received the No. 4 seed in Division I and will host Los Gatos in another Saturday quarterfinal
If the Bears can come out of that game with a win they would play another PAL team — the winner of the Sequoia at Capuchino game. M-A has already defeated Sequoia twice this season. No. 1 seed Capuchino was the PAL Bay champion.
