One of Four Super Regionals is being hosted by SRJC starting on Friday. The winner advances to the State Final Four at Fresno City College which begins on May 17th.
FRIDAY
11 pm—No. 1 SRJC (30-7-1) vs. No. 14 Solano (23-14)
3 pm—No. 6 San Joaquin Delta (26-12) vs. No. 5 Chabot (26-12)
SATURDAY
10 am—Elimination Game: Loser of Friday Games…AT CARDINAL NEWMAN
11 am—Winner of Friday Games
3 pm—Elimination Game: Winner of first game vs. Loser of second game
SUNDAY
11 am—The Winners of Saturday’s Last Two game. The winner of the Saturday 3 pm has to beat the winner of Saturday’s 11 am game twice.
If second game necessary it will start 30 minutes after Game 1.
Note: The early Saturday game is at Cardinal Newman. The rest of the games are at SRJC.
The numbers by teams are the seedings at the beginning of the tournament. The state playoffs are set up like the race for the Stanley Cup (Go Sharks). Instead of a solid bracket, the brackets are reset after each round with the highest seed meeting the lowest seed and on down.
That means that being the No. 1 seed, SRJC meets the lowest seed team. That is Solano who is the No. 14 seed of the original 18 teams in the tournament. They are one of three double digit seeds still alive in the playoffs, with the other two in the Southern California bracket.
Solano got to this round much the same route that SRJC did last week in the best of three series, losing Game 1 on Friday and then taking Game 2 and 3 on Saturday.
Solano is one of two schools in the Northern Bracket that wasn’t in the states final top 25 rankings. They finished in third place in the Bay Valley League and lost three of four to league champion Marin during the regular season. That is who they defeated last week in the first round to get the trip to Santa Rosa this weekend.
In the first game on Saturday, facing elimination Solano scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth for a shocking 3-2 win. They then took the decider 6-4. Solano has won seven of its last nine games.
The two teams met in a home and home game series in late February. SRJC won both games of 3-1 and 16-5. The 16 runs was the second highest scoring game of the season for SRJC.
Solano led the Bay Valley with a .279 average. Despite that they were third in the league in runs scored.
The leading run scoring team in the league was Los Medanos, the team that had SRJC on the brink last weekend before losing that series 2-1. Solano lost two of three to Los Medanos in league play.
SRJC is one of three Big 8 teams still going in the playoffs. One of them is San Joaquin Delta who in the second game Friday against Chabot. Just two weeks ago San Joaquin Delta took two in its three game series against SRJC. They swept its best of three series against Monterey Peninsula last weekend. They were ranked No. 9 in the last state rankings.
Chabot is ranked No. 17 in the state and finished first in the Coast/Golden Gate League. They swept Sacramento last week 2-0. Sacramento finished fourth in the Big 8 race. Chabot has won ten of their last eleven.
Chabot and SRJC started its season against each other with a two game series. SRJC won both games 6-4.
The other Big 8 team still going is Sierra. The team that finished tied for SRJC atop the Big 8 standings is hosting the other Nor Cal bracket.
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net