CONCORD — After winning the North Coast Section Division I title last weekend, top-seeded De La Salle opened the first round of the CIF NorCal Division I playoffs with a 7-3 win over No. 8 Del Oro at home on Tuesday.

De La Salle (27-4) will host St. Mary’s-Stockton today after the Rams defeated Valley Christian in their first-round game.

“We’re rolling right now, and after that big one on Saturday, we stayed composed, had good practice yesterday and just came out here to play dominant baseball,” De La Salle junior Brandon Vargas said. “We didn’t play our best game, but we played hard and we played with energy and effort and that’s all you can ask from our starting guys.”

Vargas went 2 for 3 and led De La Salle in RBIs with three. Antonio Castro went 3 for 4 and knocked in two runs while Stanford-bound shortstop Tyler Spangler had three hits.

Del Oro had the bases loaded with one out in the first inning. But De La Salle’s defense turned a 4-6-3 double play to get out unscathed.

In the home half of the first, Del Oro’s defense looked poised to escape a jam with two outs and runners on first and second. That was until Vargas hit a ball into deep left field that looked as if it was going to get caught until the outfielder lost it in the sun.

Spangler and Ethan Sullivan scored to put De La Salle up by two.

After De La Salle scored a run in the second and third innings to stretch its lead to 4-0, Del Oro had a chance to rally in the fourth.

With the bases loaded and two outs, Carson Moore ripped a double to right field that scored Jack Tews as the Golden Eagles cut the deficit to 4-1.

But the momentum was short-lived as De La Salle pitcher Jack Sydlik came in relief to record the final out.

As they have done all year, the Spartans found a way to put the game away for good. With two outs and two runners on in the bottom of the fourth, Castro hit a triple to right-center field to score Sullivan and Spangler. In the next at-bat, Oklahoma commit Alec Blair smacked a deep fly ball to center field that scored Castro from third and made the score 7-1.

Del Oro scored on a two-run homer from Shane Maloney in the sixth inning, but it didn’t matter. Sydlik needed just three pitches to retire the side in the top of the seventh to send the Spartans to the next round.

De La Salle will get a rematch with St. Mary’s today. The Rams defeated De La Salle 4-1 in eight innings in the Spartans’ season opener this year. The teams have matched up well with each other the last few years with De La Salle holding a 10-8 record against the Central Valley school since 2005.

“We’re looking for revenge,” Castro said. “They got the best of us the last two games, so we’re going to come at them hard. We gotta play with a chip on our shoulder and just trust ourselves and trust the work we put in.”