Rancho Santiago Scores Six in Ninth to Repeat as State Champion

There was a time when the last day of the state baseball tournament wasn’t something Rancho Santiago Coach Don Sneddon looked back on fondly.

The first two times his teams reached the final day, the Dons were defeated and Sneddon was left to wonder if his team would ever win a state championship.

But times have changed, and Monday the Dons again made Sneddon a happy man, scoring six runs in the ninth to beat rival Cypress, 16-10, in the championship game of the state tournament in Fresno.

It was the second consecutive state title and the third in four seasons for Sneddon and Rancho Santiago, which was in the title game for the fourth consecutive year.

“I’m sort of numb right now,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s from the ice water or the season.”

The victory ends a difficult year in which Rancho Santiago struggled with lapses in defense and pitching.

The Dons (39-12) finished tied for second in the Orange Empire Conference behind Cypress, and lost their first playoff game.

But Rancho Santiago recovered to win the final eight, including beating Cypress, 1-0, Sunday in the winners’ bracket game.

“With this club,” Sneddon said, “I felt like I was a jockey on the back of a horse I had to whip home.”

The Dons had nine players drive in runs in the taut game.

Rancho Santiago scored once in the sixth to take a 9-7 lead, but Cypress got even when Junior Rodriguez, facing an 0-2 count, crunched a two-run homer off reliever Orin Kawahara.

Kawahara settled down after that to work out of the inning and then pitched two shutout innings for the victory. He is 5-1.

He was replaced by Josh Egan, who got the final three outs.

Derek Baker hit into a force play to drive in Joe Secoda as Rancho Santiago took a 10-9 lead in the seventh.

The Dons scored six times in the ninth. Ryan Fullerton, a sophomore left-fielder, hit into a force play to drive in the first run and Mike Brambilla singled to left to push home another run.

Charlie Moreno then had a pinch-hit triple to drive in two more off reliever Keith Ginter. Greg Jacobs (2-3) took the loss in his second relief stint in the game.

Fullerton, who had a fourth-inning homer, had four hits, scored three runs and drove in two. He is going to Cal State Fullerton next season.

“It’s a great feeling,” Fullerton said about winning two consecutive state titles. “No words can explain it.”

Tony Zuniga also had a home run for the Dons. It was his second of the tournament and the fourth he has hit in the last two state tournaments.

Zuniga finished with two hits and scored three runs.

“It’s just unbelievable,” he said. “We had our downs at times but we always felt that we were going to win the state. It was on our minds the whole time since fall.

“Cypress is the best team besides us. Playing against them, that is the way to go out.”

Zuniga and Fullerton were named most valuable players of the tournament.

Jeremy Booth had a two-run single as Cypress took a 4-2 lead in the first. Booth also drove in another run with a ground out as Cypress (41-14) scored twice in the fourth to take a 6-4 lead.

Rancho Santiago scored four times in the fifth to take an 8-6 lead. Kevin Duck had an RBI double in the inning and he also had another run-scoring double in the ninth. He finished with three RBIs.

Kenny Granger had home run, his fifth, and an RBI double in the ninth and Craig Kuzmic had three hits, including two doubles for Cypress.

“Had someone told me I would have gotten this far with this team,” said Cypress Coach Scott Pickler, who led the Chargers to state titles in 1991 and ‘94, “I would have been surprised. I guess we just ran out of pitching.”