Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Arcata’s Tanner Kees slides safely into home plate during Friday’s NCS game.

The last two local teams in this year’s North Coast Section baseball playoffs will face off in a Division-5 semifinal showdown at Arcata High on Tuesday evening.

Both the Tigers and St. Bernard’s Crusaders won their quarterfinals on Friday.

And they both did it with some outstanding pitching.

Ben Lukens gave up just one hit as the No. 2 seeded Tigers defeated De Anza 10-2 at Arcata High School, while Luke Brunton pitched a complete game for No. 3 SB in a 2-1 win over Miramonte in eight innings at Crusader Field.

Brunton gave up just one run on five hits and one walk, while striking out six.

The outstanding junior also scored the winning walk-off run in the bottom of the eighth.

“He was absolutely brilliant on the mound,” St. Bernard’s head coach Matt Tomlin said of Brunton, who has been playing at an MVP level this spring.

He finished 2-for-4 at the plate and was involved in both of his team’s scores, one in the first inning and one in the final inning.

He drove in freshman Henry Hinrichs on a squeeze bunt for the opening score of the game, and led off the eighth with a single.

He would score the winning run a few minutes later on a two-strike squeeze bunt by teammate Quentin Ikeya.

Remarkably, the efficient Brunton pitched all eight innings on just 95 pitches.

Ben Lukens in action for the Tigers on Friday.

“This was one of the best high school baseball games I’ve ever been involved in, and Luke Brunton’s performance was something legends are made of,” Tomlin said.

He wasn’t the only St. Bernard’s player to impress in the win.

Junior Tyler Hinrichs, who always seems to find a way to impact the game, made a spectacular diving play at third base to deny the visitors a certain run, while sophomore Garrett Shanahan ran down a ball in the gap and made a “superman catch in centerfield to help us go to extra innings,” according to Tomlin.

The SB coach described both outs as “two amazing defensive plays that saved the game for us.”

Mateo Reiman also made some noise at the plate and finished 1-for-3 with a walk, while Ikeya was 1-for-3 with the game-winning RBI.

Henry Hinrichs also had a walk.

The Tigers, meanwhile, are the last remaining Big 5 team despite finishing fourth in conference play this season.

They had to overcome a couple of early one-run deficits after the visitors scored a run in each of the second and third innings.

But the home team would score a pair of runs in the bottom of the third to take a lead they would not relinquish and added four more runs in the fourth to take control.

Lukens threw six innings for the victory on the mound, allowing just the one hit and two walks and striking out 11.

Anthony Ebert pitched the final inning and struck out three.

Lukens also had one of his team’s seven hits, finishing 1-for-2.

“I thought that our kids stayed in it,” Arcata head coach Troy Ghisetti said. “We had some kids in the bottom of the order that really stepped up huge for us.

“It was a good team win for us.”

The in-form Joe Wellik led the Tigers at the plate and finished 3-for-4, while Emilio Medina finished 2-for-4 and AJ Greenway was 1-for-3.

The Tigers will now turn their attention to the Crusaders, with an H-DNL team guaranteed to be playing for a section championship next weekend.

The only question is which one?

“That is not going to be easy,” Ghisetti said of Tuesday’s matchup. “Both teams are very familiar with each other. We’re going to have to step up and play good baseball against them.”

The two H-DNL rivals have played each other twice this year, with the Tigers winning both.

They prevailed 5-1 early in the season and then won 7-6 in 10 innings two weeks ago.

The Tigers are 15-11, while the Crusaders are 18-8.