Sweetwater High School baseball coach Paul Wapnowski has a fairly good idea of school history for the sport, and he can’t think of a time when a Red Devil team advanced to a San Diego Section divisional championship game.
“Sweetwater has never won a section championship in baseball,” he said. “If there was a championship game appearance it was in an era I am not familiar with. I am an alumnus and I’m not aware Sweetwater has ever made a championship game appearance.”
But Wapnowski is sure of one thing: his 2016 squad will be making an appearance in Saturday’s Division IV title game at UC-San Diego. The fourth-seeded Red Devils (22-13) are scheduled to take the field against second-seeded Sage Creek at 3:30 p.m.
“If we win the CIF championship on Saturday, it would be the first for the school,” the SuHi coach said.
The Devils took advantage of the section’s double-elimination format by defeating the top-seeded Bishop’s Knights in back-to-back games after dropping a 2-1 decision to the Knights in the second round. Sweetwater met Bishop’s on the Knights’ home field on Tuesday, winning 5-0 to force a semifinal replay on Thursday. The Devils won Thursday’s game 3-0 to advance to Saturday’s division championship game.
Wapnowski said the strength of this year’s SuHi team has been its pitching and defense. Both came into play in the last two games against the Knights while mixed in with some timely run-scoring.
Memo Espinoza hurled a complete game shutout on Tuesday, followed by a complete game shutout by Isaac Piche on Thursday. Piche also supplied a RBI double in Thursday’s game.
“It was two dominant pitching performances by Memo and Isaac — two complete game shutouts,” Wapnowski said with an obvious sense of pride in his voice.
Antonio Zepeda drove in the first run in Thursday’s game on a safety squeeze in the first inning. Behind Piche’s arm, it was all the Devils would need.
Sweetwater upped its lead to 2-0 on a fielding error by Bishop’s later in the game and Piche tacked on an insurance run.
The Devils have played five games in the playoffs to reach the championship game, winning four of them, including three games while facing elimination.
“All of this in the last week has been exhilarating for the kids,” Wapnowski explained. “They’re playing their best baseball. They’re riding high and confident. But they know there’s still one more game to win, so they’re hungry also.”
The Sweetwater coach said the key was getting over the second-round loss to the Knights – the team’s third one-run loss to Bishop’s in the past two seasons. The Devils met Metro-Pacific League rival Chula Vista, seeded ninth in the division, in a third-round elimination game last Saturday, with the winner advancing to the fourth round and the loser going home.
The Devils beat the Spartans, 4-3, in a nine-inning nail-biter to draw a rematch with Bishop’s.
“The big comeback win over Chula Vista in nine innings is what propelled us, I think,” Wapnowski said. “We were a changed team after that. We took the field against Bishop’s with a different level of confidence.”
Piche started the game against Chula Vista, with Justin Meza earning the win in relief after stroking the walk-off game-winning hit.
Sage Creek (15-17) has advanced to the championship game on the strength of three consecutive wins, including two over seventh-seeded Classical Academy. The Bobcats defeated Classical Academy, 3-2, in the first round, then topped third-seeded Clairemont, 9-3, in third-round play to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.
Sage Creek drew a rematch against Classical Academy on Tuesday, winning 3-2 to stake a spot in Saturday’s division title game.
The Red Devils, who won their division at this year’s Lions tournament, and the Bobcats have not met this season.
Titans make good in must-win game, to play Dons for Open Division title
After squandering its chances in Tuesday’s fourth-round game, the fourth-seeded Eastlake Titans made sure to score some insurance runs in Thursday’s semifinal replay against fifth-seeded Grossmont. The Titans won 5-1 to advance to Saturday’s division championship game against third-seeded Cathedral Catholic.
Game time is 7 p.m. at the University of San Diego’s Fowler Park.
With both teams facing elimination in Thursday’s contest, the Foothillers took a 1-0 lead with a first-inning run before host Eastlake pushed across two runs in the bottom of the second inning. The Titans tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the fourth inning to lead 3-1 and plated two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a commanding four-run lead into the top of the seventh inning.
The Titans, who tied a school record with their 29th win of the season, closed out Grossmont’s season from there, holding the Foothillers to just three hits in the game while stroking eight hits of their own. Grossmont also committed two errors in the game.
Eastlake (29-4) advances to its second consecutive section championship game after placing runner-up in last year’s Division I final.
EHS coach Gave Gallegos said his team’s resolve was to “start a new winning streak” after the Foothillers (23-12) ended the Titans’ prodigious 23-game winning streak with a 10-inning 3-2 win on Tuesday.
Cathedral Catholic (24-9) enters the finals having won three one-run games – 7-6 over sixth-seeded Carlsbad in the first round, 2-1 over seventh-seeded Helix in the second round and 2-1 over second-seeded Rancho Bernardo in Tuesday’s fourth round.
Grant Holman, who earned the complete game victory on the hill, drove in two runs in the second inning while Ben Ramirez later tripled in a run and scored on an error. Holman had two hits in the game, drove in two runs and scored once. At one point in the game, he retired 10 Foothillers in succession.
