Cypress Gets Its First State Baseball Title

Sophomore Troy Babbitt hit a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to give Cypress an 8-7 victory over Sacramento City and its first state baseball championship Monday in front of about 1,000 at Union Stadium.

Babbitt sliced the pitch for an opposite-field homer that landed just beyond the 320-foot sign down the left-field line to complete Cypress’ amazing title run. It was his second home run of the game and seventh of the season.

“I was just looking to get on base,” Babbitt said. “All I wanted to do was hit the ball hard somewhere. I really didn’t think it was going (out) when I hit it.”

Sacramento City had been ranked No. 1 in the state most of the season and the Panthers came into the tournament--on their home field--with a 49-1-2 record. Sacramento ends 51-3-2, while Cypress, the third-place team from the Orange Empire Conference, finishes 35-15.

Cypress won its first two state tournament games in the ninth inning and won the championship in the last inning Monday.

Cypress upset Sacramento, 4-3, in the first game Friday, when Babbitt had a ninth-inning, two-run double. In their second game, the Chargers defeated Chabot, 4-3, on an RBI double by Sean Drinkwater in the ninth.

Babbitt and teammate Robert Legendre were named the co-most valuable players of the tournament.

Legendre (10-4) was 2-0 in the tournament, beating Sacramento both times. He pitched a four-hitter Friday and allowed no hits in three innings of relief Sunday.

“This is unbelievable,” Cypress Coach Scott Pickler said. “I said from the start that I liked these kids, and they came through, they never quit. What really helped was playing in our conference. It’s the best in the state and you face a strong team in each game.”

Cypress scored twice in the eighth inning Sunday to take a 7-6 lead, but Sacramento tied it in the ninth when Josh Kirtlan led off with a home run off reliever Carlos Castillo. Castillo, who allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings, was then replaced by Legendre.

Legendre, a freshman right-hander from Western High School, struck out five in three hitless innings of relief. He struck out 17 in 12 innings of work against Sacramento in the tournament.

Legendre was 5-0 in five playoff appearences. He picked up the victory when Cypress defeated Cuesta in the first round and had a pair of victories last weekend, when the Chargers won the Southern California Regional at L.A. Harbor.

“I felt great,” he said after Monday’s victory. “I could have gone nine innings if I was needed. Any way I (could) help the team win, I would.”

Kevin Cook had an RBI groundout in the first, and Jason Bates drove in a run on a single in the second as Cypress built a 2-0 lead for starter Noe Najera. But Sacramento rallied for six runs in the third, keyed by a two-run double by Kirtlan.

Babbitt hit a home run in the fifth to cut the lead to 6-3. Tom Puppe doubled and Bates’ two-out double in the sixth cut Sacramento’s lead to 6-4. Drinkwater’s seventh-inning home run, his ninth of the season for Cypress, made it a one-run game.

The Chargers regained the lead in the eighth inning. Matt Wilson’s long fly ball to left was dropped by Matt Martinez for an error, allowing one run to score. Rob Utz, Cypress’ No. 9 batter, had an RBI single to make it 7-6.

Utz, a sophomore catcher, played the entire tournament after breaking his right thumb last Sunday. He took a foul tip on the injured thumb on the next-to-last pitch of Friday’s game but continued to play and didn’t miss an inning during the tournament.

He had three hits and scored the winning run in Cypress’ 4-3 victory over Chabot.

“Utz was amazing,” Pickler said. “He hung in there the whole time and wouldn’t come out.”

Cypress becomes the second Orange County team to win a state baseball title. Orange Coast won championships in 1956, ’60 and ’80.

Cypress is also the second school to win the softball and baseball titles in the same season. Sacramento did it in 1988.

Pickler’s brother, Brad, coached Cypress to its first softball title last weekend when the Chargers beat Chabot, 2-0, in the title game at Golden West College.

“My brother didn’t outdo me,” Scott Pickler said. “And Irv (their father) is the happiest man alive. He got to see us both win titles.”