The Wilcox baseball team had Homestead right where it wanted after spotting the visiting Mustangs a six-run lead in the first.
The Chargers, with bats thundering against a depleted Homestead pitching staff, rallied for a 20-9 victory to win their Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza playoff series.
Wilcox will now host Saratoga, at 4 pm Tuesday, as the league's best-of-three championship series begins.
But perhaps the best news for both teams is they don't have to play each other any more for at least a week. This game was the fifth consecutive between the teams in 10 days.
"We're very happy to move on to someone else," Wilcox leadoff hitter Robert Bowles said. "It became so repetitive."
The Mustangs and Chargers met twice at the end of the league season before embarking on its best-of-three playoff series with each other.
"This is the first time we've ever played anyone four times in a row, much less five times," Wilcox coach Paul Rosa said. "It just so happened they were our last opponent (in the regular season), so we wound up playing them five times in a row."
The teams split the regular-season set of games and also split the first two playoff games.
Homestead looked as if it might dominate Friday with its big first inning. It roughed up Wilcox starter Andrew Najeeb-Brush for four hits and also took advantage of two walks, a hit batsman and an error to jump out to a big lead. Lane Robinette's two-run double was the key blow for the Mustangs.
But Wilcox (21-9) bounced right back with five runs in the bottom of the first inning after three of the first four batters walked. The Chargers also had three hits in the inning.
Homestead (15-13) added another run in the second to take a 7-5 lead, but then Wilcox surged for five more runs in the second to go ahead 10-7. Nick Molina's solo home run to left field started it and Stephen Jaramillo also had a key two-run double to left field as the Chargers took a lead it never relinquished.
A key for Wilcox was Bowles, who reached base in all six plate appearances, walking twice, collecting four hits and driving in three runs.
"We just needed to get the next guy (at bat) on base," Bowles said of the Wilcox approach. "Our coach just told us to play our game and that there was a lot of game left."
Homestead, lacking pitching at the end of a three-game week, trotted out six men to the mound and none of them were effective as Wilcox sent 11 batters to the plate in the first, 10 in the second and 11 in a five-run sixth.
"We don't have the pitching in a three-game week to keep rolling guys out," Homestead coach Chuck Blair said. "It just got kind of tough. (Wilcox) is a scrappy team and they're well-coached. The minute you give them any kind of open door they're going to come back at you and that's exactly what happened."
Besides Bowles, Lorenzo Martinez had three hits for Wilcox and Molina, Garret Ciuk and Jaramillo had two hits apiece.
Craig Young had three hits for Homestead and Anthony Robbins had two.
Najeeb-Brush survived that nearly disastrous first inning and got the win for Wilcox.
*****
John Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@Prep2Prep.com and followed on Twitter @PrepCat
