Eastside Catholic Crusaders sophomore pitcher Justin Armbruester was in the zone against the Cleveland Eagles in a battle between Class 3A Metro baseball teams.

Armbruester, who made his first varsity start of his high school career, unveiled a perfect game in Eastside Catholic’s 14-0 victory against Cleveland in five innings on March 20 in Sammamish. Armbruester struck out six Cleveland batters and didn’t surrender a single hit or commit a walk in the 15 batters he faced. Seven of Cleveland’s outs came on ground balls.

Crusaders’ head coach Kyle Larsen was proud of Armbruester for rising to the occasion in his first opportunity to compete on the varsity squad.

“It was very impressive. He had been practicing with the JV and he came up and did a fantastic job. He was on all day and he threw strikes. The defense backed him up well too. It was a really cool day for him,” Larsen said.

Armbruester said Larsen played a pivotal role in calming his nerves before the contest began.

“I just threw strikes and let them hit the ball. I threw mostly fastballs. I don’t think I threw anything off-speed since the first inning,” Armbruester said. “I was kind of nervous before the game because I have always been on JV but Kyle told me to just throw strikes and to do my best.”

The perfect game was in doubt with two outs in the top of the fifth inning. Cleveland’s AJ Freeman made contact a ground ball to Armbruester. Armbruester bobbled the ball before tossing the throw across the field to first base for the final out of the game.

“When it hit my knee I was thinking uh oh, but I just trusted my mechanics and threw it over to first (base),” he said.

The Crusaders offense pounded out 12 hits against the Eagles. Eastside Catholic (2-1) scored four runs in the bottom of the second and five runs in the bottom of the third to put the game away. Larsen was pleased with his team’s overall performance.

“Like we told the guys before the game, we can’t worry about the score. We just have to continue getting better,” Larsen said. “We came out and we played well today. Our starters put the ball in play and we ran the bases really well. We did what we were supposed to do.”

Shaun Scott: 425-453-5045; sscott@bellevuereporter.com