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Santa Ana College baseball team celebrates after capturing the Southern California championship. (Photo courtesy Santa Ana College athletics).
The Santa Ana College Baseball team will continue its pursuit of back-to-back titles after taking a three-game series over Palomar College in the Southern California finals to advance into the state championship.
SAC (35-13-1) showed its depth and ability to perform in big moments to knock off the No. 2 seeded Comets two games to one.
The Dons will now head to Mt. San Antonio College for the state tournament from May 25-27. They will be be matched up against the North’s No. 3 seeded West Valley College (37-12) for game one of the tournament on Saturday at noon.
Despite losing 11-7 in game one of the series, the Dons bounced back on day two thanks to another outstanding performance from sophomore reliever Alan Huerta.
Huerta earned his seventh win of the season as he struck out seven batters while giving up just three runs in eight innings of work. Joey Iglesias got two outs in the ninth before handing the ball to Jack Meek, who pitched his way out of a bases loaded jam to give SAC a 5-4 win.
On the third day, the Dons came to play as they posted 10 runs in the first three innings.
But the Comets chipped away throughout the game and eventually tied the game at 10-10 in the bottom of the eighth inning.
After going through most of their available pitchers over the weekend, the Dons turned to CJ Brown in the ninth inning. The right-hander from Pacifica High School was lights out for the final two and ⅓ innings of the game and picked up his fifth victory of the season.,
Offensively, Matthew Dobson came up clutch for the Dons with five RBI including a two run double down the left field line in the 10th inning.
Santa Ana College won the fourth state title in program history last year going undefeated in the championships.
Courtesy of SAC Sports Information
