San Diego U-T Preps

SOLANA BEACH — Chase Bushor was the first to go down.

Santa Fe Christian’s Georgetown-bound senior shortstop got the flu and it spread through the baseball team — heck, the entire school.

“Our last three practices we had six, eight and seven players,” said Eagles coach Don Mitchell, who didn’t escape the flu’s KO punch. “Heck we have 400 kids in our school and 60 were absent.

“The team was so sick, I had to call La Jolla Country Day on Tuesday and ask if we could reschedule because we didn’t have enough players to field a team.

“They were very gracious and we rescheduled for next week.”

Thursday, the Torreys and Eagles played their scheduled Coastal South League game.

And it was Bushor, just back from his sick bed and still on antibiotics, who stepped up. He walked and scored the game’s first run on Dillon Paulson’s two-RBI single, then pitched the last three innings, striking out seven as Santa Fe Christian edged LJCD 3-2.

“I’m still coughing a lot, but I’m about 80 percent,” Bushor said. “But I was one of the guys who couldn’t have played Tuesday.”

Bushor struck out the last batter in the sixth inning and got two more strikeouts in the seventh to earn the save.

The Torreys (10-8, 2-2) left two men on in the first and had a runner at second with one out in the fourth after scoring twice.

“We definitely had our chances,” said LJCD coach John Edman. “We gave them some easy plays to get out of those innings.

“It’s a tough loss, but this team is really jelling. We’re a Division I team for the playoffs. We step up and play with the big guys, but I think we can compete.”

Santa Fe Christian (15-5, 4-0) is a Division II team for the playoffs, but Mitchell said the focus is on beating LJCD and Francis Parker and winning the league.

“We’re a small-ball team,” Mitchell said. “We bunt, move runners along and try and score.”

The Eagles sacrificed three times Thursday, including Dean Eliott’s RBI squeeze in the second.

“We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves because we have four games before we play them, but we get Parker (13-7, 4-0) the last series of the season (in two weeks),” Bushor said.

“We have to be over this sickness by then because those games should be fun.”