Sacramento-area teams prep for a first: NorCal championships in baseball and softball
Baseball and softball history will be made this week with the first Northern California Regional tournaments taking place at home sites.
The single-elimination events start Tuesday, with semifinals Thursday and Saturday championships, each of them 4 p.m. starts. There will not be a state championship for either sport. Scores of students have already graduated, with more graduations this week and next.
A seeding committee for baseball and softball crunched mounds of data, including comparative scores, strength of schedules and results to seed the teams. There are five divisions consisting of eight teams each for baseball and softball. Section champions and runner-ups from the upper divisions advanced to the NorCal rounds.
Some section champions will host games, but not all. That includes Del Campo baseball, winners of 29 games and the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III bracket. Despite that pedigree, the Cougars drew a No. 8 seed and will travel to Concord to play at longtime powerhouse De La Salle, the top seed in the Division I field. De La Salle is coming off of its fifth consecutive North Coast Section Division I championship.
Why is it set up this way? The CIF uses a competitive equity model to seed teams for NorCal playoffs. Del Campo earlier this season defeated Granite Bay 2-1 in nonleague play, the same Granite Bay team that is coming off a section Division II championship. Del Campo on April 30 defeated McClatchy 6-5 in a nonleague game, the same McClatchy team that lost to Whitney 2-1 in the section Division I finals.
The committee deemed that Del Campo was a good fit in D-I based on the competitive-equity formula, and a win at De La Salle would suddenly loom as the biggest in program history. Del Campo’s argument of either being seeded too low or being placed in the wrong bracket is that section champions with so many quality nonleague wins should earn at least a home game.
“We are so fired up for the opportunity,” Del Campo coach Kevin Dawidczik said.
Whitney is the No. 3 seed in D-I baseball and will host No. 6 Valley Christian of San Jose. Whitney won its first section baseball championship with that 2-1 win effort over McClatchy.
Granite Bay is the No. 4 seed in Division II and opens at home against Ukiah. McClatchy is also in the Division II field, seeded sixth, and opens at No. 3 Pleasant Valley of Chico, which is 27-3 and won the Northern Section championship. Vanden, seeded eighth, opens at top-seeded Bellarmine College Prep of San Jose, winners of the Central Coast Section Open championship.
Rio Americano is seeded third in Division III baseball and hosts No. 6 Sutter of the Northern Section. Alpha Charter is the 7 seed and visits No. 2 Petaluma.
Bradshaw Christian is the No. 2 seed in Division IV, having extended its winning streak to 13 with a 3-1 win over Hughson to take the Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship.
Softball NorCal hopefuls
By virtue of their Sac-Joaquin Section championships, Sacramento-area teams Del Oro, Sheldon, Vista del Lago and Dixon are among the schools hosting first-round games Tuesday.
Having edged St. Francis for the Division II section championship, Del Oro earned a No. 2 seed in Division I and takes on powerful Granada of Livermore, which finished second in the North Coast Section Division I championship tournament. Sheldon lost a tournament game to Granada in early April, and Del Oro owns an early season win over Sheldon. All of that data is discussed and used when seeding teams.
Coming off its ninth section title, Sheldon is the No. 4 seed in Division I and will face No. 5 Archbishop Mitty of San Jose.
St. Francis, which lost the thrilling Division II final to Del Oro 10-9, hits the road to face its namesake in top-seeded Saint Francis of Mountain View, which has been nationally ranked. Five Lancer batters are hitting over .500, led by Jessica Oakland’s .590 average, 19 home runs and 63 RBIs. St. Francis is the No. 8 seed.
The local St Francis squad scored five times in the top of the seventh and final inning against Del Oro in a section finale that became an instant classic. The game had all the drama, including a gutty performance from Del Oro ace Caroline Grimes who was pitching with gash at the bottom of her foot caused by a freak accident a few days before the game. Grimes used Nuskin and taped the heel heavily, pushing off the rubber 127 times to earn the win.
Sheldon used the long ball, speed, defense and the force of Bree Romero in the circle to beat Lincoln of Stockton 7-1 for the Division I title. Dakota Kennedy continued her hot hitting her 12th and 13th home runs and Coco Harvell added a solo shot. Sheldon will need the long ball to beat Mitty, which has 42 homers on the year.
Division II No. 4 seed Vista del Lago picked up its first section title in softball with a surprising 7-5 win over Central Catholic. Tayler Biehl tripled, doubled, singled and even stole home in the win. Morgan Sweet’s three-run home run was the big blast in that game. Vista will host No. 5 Benicia.
The Dixon Rams topped Marysville 10-8 to take the section Division IV crown. Senior Brianna Humpheries, one of the top athletes in the section, had three hits, two RBI and two runs. She raised her batting average to .579. The Rams host nearby Woodland Christian, which won the Division V section title over Millennium 8-6 and was bumped up to Division IV for the NorCal tournament.
Northern Section powers Sutter and East Nicolaus are on opposite sides of the Division III bracket. Sutter is the No. 1 seed, East Nicolaus No. 3, and both are coming off section championships.
For full brackets, visit cifstate.org.