Granada baseball tops No. 1 De La Salle for EBAL championship
If every season is its own animal, as Granada-Livermore baseball coach Corrigan Willis says, 2024 was a whale — a blue whale, mammoth and spectacular.
The Matadors won East Bay Athletic League, North Coast Section and Northern Region Division 1 titles, a first for each, while finishing 32-1 and ranking in the top five in every national poll.
The odds of a repeat season appeared mammoth, yet host Granada pulled off the first stage Thursday in the EBAL championship game with a 5-1 win over Chronicle No. 1 De La Salle-Concord as winning pitcher Tyler Kennedy allowed just four hits and a run and struck out seven before giving way to Mason Ravera in the seventh.
Fresno State-bound third baseman Mikey Boyd drove in four runs, including two on a double, and Joey Marasco and Tommy Brown each had two hits to lift the fourth-ranked Matadors (21-5) to their second straight win this season over the Spartans (22-4) and sixth straight overall.
Granada shut out De La Salle twice in the playoffs last year and held the Spartans scoreless until the sixth inning when Alec Blair hit an RBI double.
Clearly, the Matadors are far from intimidated by the Spartans, who have built a remarkable resume under David Jeans, winner of his 300th game last week. De La Salle, led currently by the Oklahoma-bound Blair and top junior shortstop prospect Tyler Spangler, a Stanford commit, won six straight NCS titles before Granada's championship last season.
De La Salle had won 12 straight this season before Thursday by a 110-13 run differential thanks in part to the big bats of outfielder Blair (.439 average), junior catcher Zach Tchejeyan (.387), Spangler (.385, 34 RBIs, nine home runs) and senior infielder Antonio Castro (.351, five homers, 29 RBIs) and pitching of Stanford-bound junior Graham Schlicht (8-0, 0.52 ERA).
Granada has countered with big seasons from seniors Boyd (nine doubles, 22 RBIs), Pacific outfield signee Peyton Richards (.390, 30 doubles, 32 hits), Marasco (.338) and Arizona State-bound catcher Brown (.328, 22 runs, eight doubles), along with the pitching of Kennedy (6-1, 0.95) and Alex Piscotty (8-0, 0.42).
'We have a dedicated group of seniors who work hard and are hungry,' Willis said Friday morning. 'It's a lesson learned from the 2024 campaign and one that we hope will continue on with next year's group.'
More impressive on Granada's run is it has done it without USC-bound ace pitcher Jake Sekany, who went 10-1 last season with a 1.85 ERA. He pitched 12 innings early this season, going 3-0 with a 3.00 ERA, but then was shut down.
'Something wasn't quite right,' Willis said. 'We are being extra careful because of his bright future. Literally, we're taking him day by day.'
The NCS playoff seedings will be announced this weekend and Granada and De La Salle will no doubt be the top two seeds, and could face off again.
'We're looking forward to NCS and we're playing well,' Willis said. 'But as a coach, I've learned to take a moment and appreciate winning in this very tough league.'
Bellarmine shocker: The only tougher Northern California league than the EBAL is the West Catholic Athletic League, and when Bellarmine started 0-5, the Bells became an afterthought. After losing four more in a row starting on April 25, the season looked cooked.
But now the Bells are doing the cooking, claiming a WCAL playoff championship by defeating ninth-ranked St. Francis (4-1), No. 2 Serra (1-0) and No. 3 Valley Christian (3-1) in succession this week. The Bells (17-13), who were fifth in the WCAL in the regular season, became the first bottom-four seed to win the conference tournament.
Christian Duarte, a 6-foot-6 commit to Santa Clara, threw a four-hitter Thursday at Valley Christian to clinch the title. He struck out just two, walked two and didn't allow an extra-base hit. Vincent Kim had an RBI double and Dash Knight singled in a run for the Bells.
Rohan Kasanagottu pitched 3⅓ scoreless and hitless innings of relief for Valley Christian (23-6-1), which had won 10 straight coming into the game and will likely get a top-two seed in next week's Central Coast Section playoffs.
Briefly: From a busy Thursday — No. 12 Livermore (23-11) won the EBAL softball playoff title with a 7-4 win over No. 11 California as Payten Williams drilled a three-run homer and winning pitcher Kaci Norton struck out five. … Northgate-Walnut Creek (Division 1), International (Division 2), Washington-Fremont (Division 3) and Berean Christian-Walnut Creek (Division 4) all won NCS boys volleyball titles and advanced to next week's Northern California regionals with those champions advancing to the first CIF State championships May 31 at Fresno City College. … NCS lacrosse champions crowned: Marin Catholic-Kentfield (Division 1 boys), University (Division 2 boys), Redwood-Larkspur (Division 1 girls), College Park-Pleasant Hill (Division 2 girls).
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