Baseball: Lots on line in Broncos, Titans series

More times than not, the Palomar League baseball race comes down to who wins the Poway-Rancho Bernardo series each year.

Sixteen times in the last 20 seasons, those two rivals have claimed a league championship. Rancho Bernardo has won the league championship 12 times during that span to Poway’s four.

Eleven times those two teams have produced San Diego Section championship teams, like last year when Rancho Bernardo claimed the Open Division crown and Poway took home the Division I title.

“Series like Poway-RB gets a little adrenalin pumping,’’ said Rancho Bernardo coach Sam Blalock, who surged past 900 career victories during this season. “It doesn’t surprise me that the winner of this series prevails so much in league.

“When I was at Mt. Carmel, it was Mt. Carmel-Poway. Now it’s RB-Poway.’’

Added Poway coach Bob Parry, who played for Blalock at Mt. Carmel and coached with him at Rancho Bernardo: “The games against RB are really intense. Most definitely it’s a rivalry.

“You’ll see something in those games that you’ll remember. Last Year, Tyler Nevin’s homer off of Drew Finley was huge. It could be just a catch, but you’ll remember something.’’

The series of the year begins Monday at Poway with Game 1 followed by Game 2 on Wednesday at Rancho Bernardo and the finale May 13 at Poway. All three games start at 3:30 p.m.

Before playing for the league title, Poway must deal with Canyon Crest Academy while Rancho Bernardo takes on Mt. Carmel in a three-game series that concludes Friday.

“Some years other teams are up, some years they’re down, but you never get any phone-them-in wins in the Palomar League,’’ Blalock said. “If you have a goal in mind and it comes to a series against Poway, that should take care of itself as far as getting the players into it.’’

In the last decade, Rancho Bernardo owns a slim 19-15 edge against the Titans.

The games in this series are rarely the same. You might get a 2-1 pitching duel between two of the county’s best hurlers. Or you might have a 10-9 slugfest filled with home runs and tons of extra base hits.

No matter what, the winning team will be the one that can at least muster a few innings of good pitching or it might be the team that executes something that might seem like a little thing but winds up deciding the outcome.

Both teams have a team batting average above .300. Rancho Bernardo’s team ERA is 1.72 with Poway’s staff checking in at 2.63.

“If there is a chink in someone’s armor, we’ll exploit it and so will Poway,’’ Blalock said. “We lost the final game to them last year and they were really playing well at the end of the season.

“It didn’t surprise me that they also won a CIF title the way they were playing.

“One thing you can say about Poway is they will always be there and they will do everything they can to beat you.’’

After a slow start last season, Poway roared back from that 5-7 start and won the series finale against Rancho Bernardo in league play en route to winning the Division I title.

Rancho Bernardo closed out its championship run in 2015 by winning its last four games and 13 of its last 14.

“After you play three games late in the year against Rancho Bernardo, you’re ready for CIF,’’ Parry said. “Playing in the Palomar League is a big advantage for us heading into the playoffs.

“Once you go through everything the league throws at you, it’s almost easier going through the playoffs.’’

But the start of that playoff run begins next week with the annual Poway-Rancho Bernardo series.

Monahan is a freelance writer.