Prep baseball: Tiny Alpha Charter continues unlikely run to NorCal championship game

The clock is ticking on the Alpha Charter High School baseball program and school as a whole.

Not just because the high school baseball season ends Saturday. By next week, Alpha Charter a middle and high school, will close due to low enrollment and financial concerns. So it is no wonder the Elverta school’s 50 students, with nearly half the students playing on the baseball team, is making the most of their final days as team and as a student body. The goal when the school opened in 2013 was to make history.

The baseball program delivered. On Thursday in Carmichael, the No. 7-seeded Angels thumped No. 3 Rio Americano in a Northern California region Division III semifinal. The region’s biggest-kept secret is no longer just the little-guy program tucked over in the corner. Alpha Charter players look the part of sluggers. Even foul balls are of the screaming variety, including moon shots that landed in the backyards of houses close to the Jesuit baseball field Thursday.

At 29-3, Alpha Charter is as intriguing of a storyline as the Sac-Joaquin Section has produced this academic year. It’s one thing to storm to the smallest-school Division VI section championship, but it is entirely impressive to be moved up three divisions through the CIF’s competitive-equity model and to win road games against decades-long successful programs that don’t have discussions of dissolving a school.

Alpha Charter will play Saturday at St. Bernard’s of Eureka for the NorCal champion. Where would the banner go? Eureka is a six-hour, 300-mile trip one-way trip, but nobody on this program is complaining. It’s one final game together, the road trip of the year. The team’s six seniors graduate next week in a ceremony at the school.

The slogan Alpha Charter coach Harvey Hargrove instilled this season, when the team learned the school would be shutting down at the end of the academic year, is to play until they make them stop. He is the first-year head coach who previously served as an assistant.

“It’s surreal,” Hargrove said. “We have come to the point where I said a couple of weeks ago before the section playoffs started: What if we just played until they didn’t have any more games for us? We have now come to that point. It’s been about the last dance all season. We have the opportunity to seal the closing of the school and program with a pretty good cherry on top.”

Hargrove can speak of baseball success. He was a 1990s star at Cordova High School, just like Jerry Manuel, the founder of Alpha Charter, did years prior. Manuel was a first-round draft pick of the Detroit Tigers 50 years ago this month. He went on to play in the bigs and he was the American League Manager of the Year in 2000 with the Chicago White Sox.

Manuel’s “Jerry Manuel Foundation” is rooted in giving players of color a chance to learn how to play baseball and how to play it the right way. Jerry’s son, Anthony, was the previous head coach at the school before Hargrove took over. The mission the Manuel family set when they opened the school was to eliminate the pay-to-play model that has consumed youth baseball. A majority of the players on Alpha Charter come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Everything is provided to the kids for free.

“A lot of our kids are priced out of the game,” Hargrove said. “It’s huge to have a guy (like Manuel) who wants to help eliminate the pay-to-play model. He’s essentially opening it up so the people who can’t afford it have a good coaching staff around them and they’re able to build themselves up.”

Said Manuel. “We’ve been kind of a secret, and we couldn’t get teams to play us because losing to such a small school like us wouldn’t be good for them. But this is an outstanding team. These kids have great character. That’s the No. 1 thing we preach here: character, sportsmanship and playing hard.”

Of coach Hargrove, Manuel said, “He’s a sponge. He’s learned that you don’t have to punish kids in baseball. Use discipline. It’s a form of love. And we get after it.”

The star for Alpha Charter is Sacramento State-bound Jaxon Byrd, a 6-foot, 205-pound senior who pitched a complete game and had a loud hit in the fifth inning Thursday that increased the Angels’ lead to 10. Byrd has attended Alpha Charter since he was in seventh grade.

Sac State coach, Reggie Christiansen attended the game. Christiansen wasn’t there to watch Byrd, as that would be a NCAA violation. Christiansen was there to watch his two sons, Reese and Ryan, members of Rio Americano.

“We have been saying this is the last ride,” Byrd said. “We are trying to make a statement. Our league is Division VII and we got bumped up to Division III. So far we have been playing some pretty good baseball. We hope we can come out and do it one more time.”

He added, “I’ve been here my whole high school career and (part) of middle school, so I got the full experience. It’s really too bad (the younger players) won’t get the same experience I got. But I believe that they will go to whatever team they’re going to go to and make a big impact.”

Byrd isn’t the only player that stepped up. Sophomore Drew Brown drove in four runs against Rio Americano and junior Derrick Fisher had a two-run double. The theme among those two players and the rest of the underclassmen on the roster is they will have to find a new home next season.

“I’m happy for our seniors that they get to go out like this win or lose,” said Hargrove, the coach. “The ones that are moving on I think are going to be OK. Most of them have been here at least two years so they have the foundation. I hate to say I’m not concerned (about them because) they might end up somewhere where a guy already plays their position. Hoping they can work through it and have a senior year where they can play for a championship as well.”

The coach added, “We have some kids that come from pretty tough situations that have overcome things in life,” “What you’re seeing is a combination of them dealing with their struggles in life and the school closing down. A lot of families are hurt by that. But you see how we are going out, it’s a testament to the fight these young men and their families have.”

Manuel, the baseball program founder, said sports is about life. The closing of the school is not the fault of the team or any of the players. It’s out of their control.

“You’ve got to deal with it, and it’s tough and unfortunate that it’s closing,” Manuel said.

Rio Americano finished its season 21-13. The Raiders reached the section Division ll final as a double-digit seed and beat Sutter in the opening game of the NorCal tournament. Brady Wilson led the Raiders with a .434 average and had 29 RBIs. Jake Marr hit .411 and drove in 32 runs.

This story was originally published June 3, 2022 at 7:28 AM.