HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL CITY SECTION 3-A DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIP : Fremont Ends 29-Year Wait for Eighth Title, 8-6

It had been 21 seasons since Fremont High reached the City Section baseball championship game before Wednesday night’s 3-A Division final against Crenshaw.

Pathfinder assistant coach Taja Rodisha kept track of each passing season. Rodisha was a center fielder on that 1971 team which lost to Monroe in the championship.

Rodisha’s patience was rewarded when Fremont defeated Crenshaw, 8-6, before 7,683 at Dodger Stadium to win a record eighth title and its first since 1963. The Pathfinders won six City championships between 1939 and 1948, including three in a row from 1946-48.

Dorsey, which has won six titles, and Granada Hills, with five, are the only other schools to win more than four championships.

“It’s been unreal, this is one of the my most heartfelt moments,” said Rodisha, who also coaches the football team and is in his 13th season as an assistant with the baseball team.

“I always tell these kids the reason I came back to Fremont was to win the City title that I let get away when I was here. For me to win this championship was the ultimate. Once, you’re the champ, nobody can take that away.”

Early in the game, it looked like a championship might elude Rodisha again. Crenshaw (17-7) opened the game with consecutive singles and scored twice in the first inning.

The Cougars scored again in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead. Meanwhile, Fremont, which scored 33 runs in its four playoff victories, sent only nine batters to the plate in the first three innings.

“It was no big deal,” Fremont Coach Marshall Gelb said. “We knew that two runs wasn’t going to beat us. We needed the first run. We kept saying that if we got that first run, we’d be rolling.”

Gelb’s prediction materialized in the bottom of the fourth.

After starting pitcher Cesar Lopez (1-1) doubled home James Lofton and Gerardo Reyes with two out in the fourth, Fremont (18-7) scored twice more to take a 4-3 lead and never trailed again.

Fremont placed fifth in the Southeastern Conference, but ended the season by winning seven of its last eight games. It was a finish that even Lofton found hard to believe.

“We won the playoff games to get here and I knew we were good enough, but at the beginning of the season, I didn’t thing we had a chance,” said Lofton, who reached base three times and had his 25th stolen base of the season. “We came up playing the second half of the season and this is what it added up to.”

Fremont’s Jorge Soto had two hits and drove in two runs and Ulises Fernandez, the winning pitcher in the Pathfinders’ 14-1 semifinal victory over Washington, earned the save.