SANTA CLARA — Shuffling the lineup a week before the Central Coast Section playoffs may have seemed risky, considering the Serra High baseball team already earned a West Catholic Athletic League co-championship.

But the Padres' rebuilt batting order delivered a dramatic comeback victory Thursday night to send Serra into the Central Coast Section playoffs with momentum.

Overcoming a 6-1 deficit with authority, Serra won 9-8 in nine innings over Bellarmine in the final of the WCAL tournament at Santa Clara University.

Four Padres had multiple hits in a 13-hit effort that offset a rocky start by ace Ryan Allgrove, and junior Ian Tolle hit a pinch-hit, two-out single that led to the winning run.

"This game just builds character for us," said Allgrove, whose move to the No.2 hole this week paid off with a 2-for-4, two-RBI night. "And going into CCS, that's huge."

With an eye toward winning the program's first CCS title since 1998, Serra coach Pete Jensen switched his lineup around after a 4-1 loss at WCAL co-champion Valley Christian on Friday.

Asked if the late changes were a gamble, Jensen smiled and said, "Yeah, but it worked out good, didn't it?"

Bidding to defeat No.4 seed Bellarmine for the fifth time this season, Serra (25-6) quickly found out these weren't the same Bells that it had defeated by a combined score of 30-2. Bellarmine (18-15) tagged Allgrove for four hits and three runs in the first inning, and then benefited from a

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two-out error to pad its lead to 6-1 midway through the second.

But after a three-hit, three-RBI night in Serra's 14-6 semifinal win over No.6 seed Riordan on Wednesday, new No.3 hitter Ryan Palermo aided the comeback with a two-out single that drove in Allgrove to cut the deficit to 6-3 in the second.

Junior Tony Renda (3-for-5) continued to flourish in his newfound leadoff duties with a two-run, third-inning double, and then Allgrove immediately followed by tying the game with an RBI single to right.

Asked if he was confident when his team took the quick five-run lead, Bellarmine coach Gary Cunningham was decisive: "No. This is Serra. You see how they swing the bat. They just kept coming back."

Bellarmine, which had 11 hits, retook the lead with Joe Sever's two-run double in the fourth.

"I needed a lot of runs today," said Allgrove, who again helped himself with an RBI groundout that made it 8-8 in the fifth. "Bellarmine did a helluva job staying back on my pitches and hitting every single pitch I threw at them."

Bellarmine senior reliever Michael Couch settled down to blank Serra the next three innings, and then the Bells threatened to score the go-ahead run after Chris Lee hit a two-out single in the ninth. But courtesy-runner Andy Hennessey, who stole second and took third on a throwing error, was stranded when Serra reliever Logan Scott (9-0) struck out Patrick James to end the inning.

Serra prevailed with a two-out, ninth-inning rally of its own. Justin Maffei (2-for-4) hit an infield single off Craig Broussard (6-4) and took second when the throw to first sailed away. Tolle followed with another infield single, and third baseman Alex Guthrie's hurried throw hit the first-base bag and bounced away, allowing Maffei to score.