SHERMAN OAKS — Harvard-Westlake pitcher Duncan Marsten squatted and looked at the palm of his hand at the beginning of every inning of Wednesday’s game against Notre Dame.
“That’s kind of just centering all the energy I have into this hand,” Marsten said, “because that’s all I really need.”
The Wolverines’ offense went to work early as Marsten maintained his focus to help Harvard-Westlake come out with an 8-5 win and beat the Knights for the second time in as many days to remain on top of the Mission League baseball standings.
Roughly 50 professional baseball scouts came out to watch the game, which was flooded with talent between the two teams. Levi Sterling, the No. 40 MLB prospect, started at pitcher for the Knights (5-6-1 overall, 2-4-1 in Mission League) and Bryce Rainer was at shortstop for Harvard-Westlake (10-1-1, 6-0-1), which beat the Knights 2-1 on Tuesday.
Today is Game 2 between Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame baseball. A big pitching matchup awaits in Duncan Marsten and Levi Sterling. pic.twitter.com/7RsHXED7KB
— Haley Sawyer (@haleymsawyer) March 13, 2024
Marsten, a Wake Forest commit, was undeterred in his first career start against Notre Dame and said he had been working on his focus from last season until now.
“It was super exciting to finally face our rivals,” Marsten said. “My brother actually played for Notre Dame and we had a little ongoing rivalry family-wise. But it’s always fun to come out here and compete, especially against these guys.”
The Wolverines scored all of their runs in the first two innings. Rainer hit a leadoff double, then Cade Goldstein doubled to drive him in. Miguel Villegas came up with a three-run double to finish off the scoring in the top of the first inning.
Sterling drove in Kai Gonzaga, who went 3 for 3 at the plate, on a sacrifice fly to cut Notre Dame’s deficit to 4-1.
Harvard-Westlake tacked on four more runs in the top of the second frame. Jack Laffitte’s two-run home run highlighted the inning and alleviated some pressure from Marsten by giving him an 8-1 lead.
“Levi Sterling, whether he goes to Texas or he goes to the draft, he’s stellar, top tier,” Harvard-Westlake coach Jared Halpert said. “To score any runs off of those types of arms is fortunate and we were just happy to get a chance to find some grass today.”
Sterling threw for 2 2/3 innings before sophomore JuJu Diaz-Jones came in for 1 1/3 innings. Patrick Arranga, another sophomore, threw for 1 2/3 innings and submarine pitcher Nick Ladanza closed out the final inning.
The Knights have only two returning starters from last season — Sterling at pitcher/shortstop and Gonzaga in center field. Notre Dame had four errors in the game but none were costly, and the Knights came up with some late hits to make up for it.
Gonzaga and Aaron Luna both hit RBI singles to add two runs for Notre Dame in the fourth inning as the defense held the Wolverines scoreless for the remainder of the game.
The Knights had one last offensive push in the seventh inning when Dominic Cadiz doubled, then Sterling homered over the left field fence to cut the Wolverines’ lead to 8-5.
“I was proud of (Sterling) and the guys,” Notre Dame co-head coach Nick LaFace said. “We talked to the guys and said hey, turn off the scoreboard and keep competing.”
While one of the Mission League’s biggest baseball rivalries is done for the season, the competition continues. Harvard Westlake starts a three-game series against Crespi (4-7, 2-4) on the road on Tuesday and Notre Dame hosts Alemany (6-5-1, 2-3-1) on the same day to begin a three-game series.
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