LONG BEACH – After a special CIF-SS playoff run, Dos Pueblos baseball came up just one game short.
The Chargers fell to Ganesha High in the CIF-SS Division 4 Championship by a score of 8-2 on Saturday at Blair Field in Long Beach.
Despite the loss, Dos Pueblos put together one of the most successful seasons in program history, reaching the CIF-SS Finals for the first time since 1993 and the second time ever.
“I’m just really proud of this team and this program right now,” Chargers head coach George Hedricks said. “You dream about winning the league and want to get a CIF championship, and it just shows you how incredibly hard it is to get this far. Playoffs aren’t guaranteed, a playoff win sure as heck isn’t guaranteed and multiple playoff wins are certainly not guaranteed.
“It’s special. It’s hard to do. It is hard to get this far. A lot of good teams have come through DP, and it’s not for lack of them being good. It’s just that it’s tough to get through other teams, especially in the Southern Sections. It’s just good baseball.”
While Saturday’s game marks the end of Southern Section action, Dos Pueblos will turn around and compete in the CIF State Playoffs beginning on Tuesday. The location and opponent will be determined on Sunday.
“I think for us, we always want to win games. I don’t care if it’s fall ball, summer ball, CIF, I mean, we want to win,” Hedricks said of the State Tournament. “We want to play good baseball and try to win a ball game, and I think that mentality is something we’ve done and it’s a big part of why we had the success we had this year.”
After turning in strong offensive performances against solid arms throughout the CIF-SS postseason, Dos Pueblos fell victim to a gem by Ganesha senior and UCSB commit Gavin Moran on Saturday.
Moran twirled a complete game, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out eight batters on his way to the win.
“I think [Moran] just was more consistent with all three of his pitches,” Dos Pueblos catcher Zach Gesswein said. “He had to get the basketball, that kind of had some life through the zone. He also had a curveball that kind of dropped off, and the changeup was just there to kind of be the in-between pitch, which kind of kept us off balance.”
The Giants jumped on the Chargers in the first inning as the first four batters reached base, with Sutton Frost drawing a bases-loaded walk to take a 1-0 lead.
They stayed hot in the first as Bryant Loo roped a two-run single and Bryce McAninch drove in one on a single to take a 4-0 lead, which held into the second after a scoreless bottom half.
Dos Pueblos got one run back in the bottom of the second when Mateo Saldana came through with two outs, cracking an RBI double down the left-field line to score Charlie Potter and cut the deficit to 4-1.
Ganesha promptly responded by bringing its lead back to four runs thanks to a booming RBI triple off the bat of McAninch in the top of the third.
Derek Brunet took over on the mound for the Chargers in the fourth and set the Giants down in order with a pair of strikeouts. However, Moran answered with a 1-2-3 inning of his own.
“That first inning was a little bit rough for us, but I thought we rebounded from it really well, found a way to mark in the second to get us on the board to make it a three-run game,” Hedricks said. “The way our season’s gone, we’ve given up some runs early in games before and settled down… I thought we settled down well in the mid innings.”
The Giants then extended their lead to five runs in the top of the fifth courtesy of an RBI double by Frost to make it 6-1. Back-to-back strikeouts by Brunet to end the frame prevented any further damage.
Moran continued to roll in the bottom half of the fifth, working around a Shane Grant single and striking out the side to preserve the comfortable lead.
Carter Low then took the ball from Brunet in the top of the sixth and gave his team a boost by striking out the side in order. However, the Chargers couldn’t capitalize and went down in order in the bottom half.
In the top of the seventh, Ganesha catcher and USC commit Isaiah Ibarra launched a towering two-run homer over the left-field wall to add onto the lead and make it 8-1 heading into the bottom half.
The Giants likely would have continued their rally if it weren’t for center fielder Stone Saunders gunning down a runner attempting to score on a single for the second out.
Dos Pueblos continued to fight in the bottom of the seventh as Alexander Hajda sent a triple into the right field corner before Brody DeMourkas drove him in on an RBI groundout to cut the deficit to 8-2.
“In the last inning, we’re putting up good swings and hitting the ball hard. Our guys aren’t down. They’re playing the ball game like I was expecting to and giving us a shot,” Hedricks said.
However, Moran quickly recovered and got the next batter to strike out to clinch the CIF-SS Division 4 title. It is the program’s second in three years after winning the Division 7 title in 2023.
While the Chargers may still have another postseason run in them, Gesswein is proud of the way his team and its 12 seniors performed throughout the CIF-SS playoffs.
“The seniors, we’ve been together since the start,” Gesswein said. “I think since we were six, seven and eight, we’ve been playing together.
“It’s just a really good group of guys that, you know, since we’ve been together so long, I’m really glad we were able to put something together in the end, even though we’ve still got more.”
