Peninsula Prep Baseball
Valley Christian has scaled the summit – again.
The Warriors won their 12th Central Coast Section championship on Saturday night with a 6-0 victory over Soquel at Excite Ballpark in San Jose.
The championship snapped a two-year drought for John Diatte's squad, which prior to the dry spell, had captured five of the previous six CCS big-class championships.
On Saturday, they rode a strong pitching performance from Gabe Felix and an offense that once again proved its resiliency to knock off a Soquel squad that was looking to become the first Santa Cruz County team to win a CCS big-class crown.
The fifth-seeded Knights had entered the contest on the heels of back-to-back tournament shutouts of St. Ignatius Prep and top-seeded Saint Francis but were dealt a blow when senior southpaw Jake Escalante was limited to an inning against Valley.
Escalante, the Cal State-Fullerton signee pitched a perfect first inning before throwing three pitches to Nathan Miller to start the second inning. He was removed with an apparent injury in favor of Luke Shoemaker.
Valley took advantage with two runs in the bottom of the third inning and broke it open with three more in the fourth.
Colton Hadfield, who had walked in the third, scored on a Christian Nevarez double. Miller followed with a base hit that chased home Nevarez to make it 2-0.
In the fourth inning, Jack Graham singled home a run and Hadfield, a junior who has already committed to UCLA, followed with a two-run double.
That was more than enough offense for Felix, who threw five scoreless innings. He struck out six. Alex Kim faced just seven batters over the final two innings to close out the Knights.
| R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 5 Soquel (23-5) | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| No. 2 Valley Christian (20-9) | 6 | 7 | 2 |
W: Felix | L: Shoemaker | 2 hits- Miller (VC). 2 RBI- Hadfield (VC). 2B- Hadfield (VC), Nevarez (VC).
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