Redwood High leadoff hitter Theo Trono would have gladly settled for a little less stress in Friday night’s MCAL baseball final against regular season champ San Marin.

The tension certainly hung thick in the air before the Giants finally defended their title with a taut 6-5 nine-inning victory against the Mustangs on a windless night at Albert Park in San Rafael.

“The anxiety level was through the roof in those last couple of innings,” said second baseman Trono, last season’s MCAL player of the year. “You have to believe every ball is going to be hit to you and you have to know what to do with it if it is.”

Trono, however, seemed cool as a cucumber batting in the top of the ninth when his sacrifice fly drove in Noah Gersch — who led off the inning with a hard double down the left-field line — from third base with the game-winning run.

“The infield was in and I was just trying to put the ball in play,” said Trono, who also knocked in a run in the fifth with a sacrifice fly to right. “As long as I got the run in, I don’t care how I got it in. A run is a run.”

For a spell, a ninth-inning run of any kind seemed improbable.

Redwood (18-8-1) led 5-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh.

But San Marin (16-10) battled back to knot the score at 5-5 when Joey Cipollina delivered a clutch two-out, two-run single into left field to send the game into extra innings.Redwood reliever Jack Gurley, who allowed the tying run, made amends in the final two innings to notch the win.

Gurley retired seven of the last nine batters he faced and did not allow a hit over the final two innings.

“Our pitchers battled all day,” said Redwood right fielder Jack Moseley, who put the Giants ahead for the first time in the fifth when he drilled a two-run single to center to cap a four-run outburst. “That hit in the fifth was big. It brought the team up and after that we just kept putting the ball in play and moving the line.”

San Marin, which lost in the MCAL title game for the third consecutive year, chased Redwood sophomore starting pitcher Maxim Wells by collecting four hits in the first 1.2 innings.

Wells, however, was touched for just one run thanks in large part to center fielder Sam Gersch, who fired a strike to cut down a runner attempting to score from second on a hit in the first.

The Giants flashed the leather again in the second when sophomore first baseman Chase Johnson dove headlong to his left to snag a hot grounder that seemed destined for the right-field corner and two San Marin runs.

“We made a couple of nice defensive plays,” Redwood coach Mike Firenzi said. “We made most of the routine plays, too. Playing defense and (pitchers) throwing strikes will win a lot of games in high school baseball.”

The Mustangs did, however, add solo runs in the third — on a Tyler Keehn run-scoring double to deep left — and in the fourth on a throwing error on a stolen base for a 3-0 lead. Keehn led San Marin’s 12-hit attack by going 3 for 4.

After the four-run outburst in the fifth, the Giants added another run in the sixth on a perfectly executed suicide squeeze bunt by Ghio to score Ethan Ferry from third.

Jack Post turned in a solid middle relief outing for the Giants, allowing only two runs in nearly four innings of work.

San Marin starting pitcher Tanner O’Keefe, limited the Giants to one hit — a long triple to center field by Moseley in the first — and no runs through the first four innings.

Trono said that Firenzi put the thought in the team’s heads every day that they would return to the championship game this season, despite a rather slow start.

“I told the kids before this game that if you want to be the champion, you have to beat the champion,” Firenzi said.

Redwood and San Marin advance to the opening round of the North Coast Section playoffs next week. Seedings and opponents will be announced Sunday.