To be the best you have to beat the best, so you won’t hear the
Gilroy baseball team complaining at all as it prepares for its
showdown with top-seed Valley Christian in the Central Coast
Section Division I semifinals.
To be the best you have to beat the best, so you won’t hear the Gilroy baseball team complaining at all as it prepares for its showdown with top-seed Valley Christian in the Central Coast Section Division I semifinals.
“Our kids have been talking about this game all week,” said Mustangs coach Clint Wheeler, whose team advanced to the semis with a 2-1 win over Wilcox on Saturday.
Valley Christian enters today’s 7pm contest at San Jose’s Municipal Stadium about as loaded as you can get. With a 31-4 record, the Warriors carry the No. 6 ranking in the state and the West Catholic Athletic League championship banner.
So far in the playoffs, they’ve been unstoppable, cruising to an 11-0, mercy-rule shortened win over Woodside in their playoff opener and rolling past Homestead 14-4 in another mercy-rule shortened game in the quarterfinals.
“They’re pitchers are good, experienced and have a lot of velocity,” Wheeler said. “They play good defense and have been in a lot of close games.”
Two of Valley Christian’s four losses came to Serra, who held the state’s No. 1 ranking until an 8-0 loss to Archbishop Mitty in the WCAL playoffs. The other two losses were to North Coast Section power De La Salle, the top seed in the NCS 3-A East Bay playoffs, and to St. Francis.
But the Mustangs aren’t looking at all that. They’re focused on doing what they do best.
“They keep doing what they’ve done all year to get them here,” Wheeler said of his player’s approach. “All the pressure’s on them (Valley Christian). They’re the higher seed. They’re supposed to win.”
Wheeler plans to send junior left-hander Jacob Dexter to the mound. In 14 appearances this season, Dexter is 6-3. He got the start in the CCS opener against Archbishop Mitty and earned a no-decision while going 5 1/3 innings.
“We need to get him deep into the game,” Wheeler said. “He’s got to get ahead of guys and force them to put the ball in play.”
The Warriors are expected to counter with Jonathan Hughes, a pitcher who hails from Morgan Hill and has played on summer league teams with some of the Mustangs.
“Our guys are definitely very familiar with a lot of their players,” Wheeler said.
One of the most important things will be keeping the emotions in check, particularly with this being an intense playoff game played under the lights in a larger than normal stadium.
“We were in a situation earlier in the year when we played a lot of West Catholic teams,” Wheeler said. “Our guys learned from that. They learned what being too amped will do for you.”
