The week of playoff baseball begins on Wednesday with three games in the High School world.
The High School tournaments are not on the level of importance of the JC and College tournaments. The JC and College tournaments are season ending tournaments. Win or lose most, if not all, of the teams in the NBL and SCL baseball tournaments will be playing next week when the NCS playoffs begin.
But to some these tournaments are more important for the bragging rights that go with it
NBL POST SEASON TOURNAMENT—BOTH GAMES AT 4 PM
No. 4 Rancho Cotate at No. 1 Casa Grande
No. 3 Cardinal Newman at No. 2 Maria Carrillo
Casa Grande is coming off a regular season which was one of the best in recent memory for a local team. The 13-1 league record isn’t that much out of the ordinary. Since 2009 when the fourteen game league schedule began (each team played each other three times before that for a 21 game schedule), Casa Grande is the fourth team to finish 13-1. Cardinal Newman has done it twice, last year and in 2009 when Montgomery was also 13-1. The best over record of those 13-1 teams was the 2009 version of Cardinal Newman who went 22-6. Casa Grande is 22-2.
Two of the wins are over Rancho Cotate, the most recent 6-0 ten days ago. The other was on April 10th when Casa Grande was in the middle of its one run win streak. In this one run win they scored two in the bottom of the seventh for a 3-2 win.
Rancho Cotate ended the regular season winning four of five, the only loss to Casa Grande.
If it wasn’t for Maria Carrillo, who knows what kind of season Cardinal Newman would be having. The two teams have met three times and Maria Carrillo has taken all three games, the latest last Friday by a 4-1 score. That game decided where this game would be played.
Maria Carrillo as ended the season with a six game winning streak.
SCL POST SEASON TOURNAMENT—7 PM
No. 1 Analy vs. No. 4 Sonoma Valley at Arnold Field in Sonoma
The two last league champions meet in the opener.
The closest Analy came to losing a league game was the first league game of the season against Sonoma Valley. It looked like routine stuff and a reality check for Analy, who had started 8-2 and was riding a six game winning streak. Sonoma Valley had a 5-0 lead going to the bottom of the fourth. Analy scored one each in the fourth, fifth and sixth before pulling out a 6-5 win with a three run seventh.
That was as close as Analy came to losing a league game. They had three games they won by three runs, two against Petaluma and the other one against Sonoma Valley. Those five runs they gave up in Sonoma Valley in the opener, was a third of the runs they gave up during the league season. In the other eleven wins they outscored opponents 102-10.
Sonoma Valley has had a down year for its standards. It is the first time since 2009 that they didn’t finish over .500 in league play. Before the two game winning streak they are currently on, they lost four straight.
All the games in the tournament will be played at Arnold Field. The other first round game between Piner and Petaluma will be played on Thursday and the championship game will be on Friday. All games scheduled is at 7 pm.
FINISHING IT OFF
No. 1 Petaluma and No. 2 Maria Carrillo ended the league season with wins.
Petaluma scored eight in the first in a 10-0 win over Healdsburg. Petaluma is 22-1 overall finish 12-0 in league play. The loss was the first game of the season.
Petaluma has won three straight league titles going a combined 33-3.
Maria Carrillo will be going for win number 20 when they start the NCS playoffs next week. They finished league play 11-1 with a 7-2 win over Cardinal Newman. Maria Carrillo has a twelve game winning streak and is 19-5 on the season. Maria Carrillo won the NBL championship for the first time since 2008.
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net