CIF playoffs: Area baseball and softball teams ready for semifinal showdowns

May 24—A busy two days of semifinal action is on deck for area teams.

Three Santa Maria valley baseball and softball teams are still alive in the CIF Central Section playoffs while Nipomo's softball team and Arroyo Grande's baseball team are still playing as well.

Those teams will play in semifinals this week, starting with the baseball semis on Tuesday with the softball action following on Wednesday.

Righetti is the No. 5 seed in the eight-team CIF-CS Div. 1 baseball playoffs. The Warriors edged No. 4 Clovis West 4-3 last Thursday on the road.

As the No. 5 seed, Righetti had little hope of hosting a semifinal game, but here we are. The Warriors will host No. 8 Bakersfield Frontier on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. after the Titans stunned the Fresno area with a 17-11 thrashing of No. 1 Clovis Buchanan, which CalHi Sports had ranked first in the state prior to the postseason.

The other two teams remaining in the Division 1 playoffs are also both Bakersfield schools and members of the Southwest Yosemite League. No. 2 Stockdale hosts No. 6 Bakersfield Liberty in the other semifinal.

Righetti is 24-5 on the season. Frontier is 17-12.

The championship game will be played at a site to be determined, either Friday or Saturday. Righetti and Frontier are fairly familiar. The teams played in March with Righetti winning 10-4. Frontier edged Righetti 2-1 in a thrilling 11-inning CIF-CS semifinal in 2018.

Righetti lefty Ricky Smith earned the win against Frontier earlier this season and Smith pitched six innings in the win over Clovis West last week.

The Warriors also used Omar Reynoso, a junior left-hander like Smith, and Cooper Bagby, a hard throwing right-hander, against the Golden Eagles in a high-pressure seventh inning where Clovis West had two runners on but ran into the final out at third base.

Jaycob Villalpando leads Frontier in hits with 32 on the season. He's hitting .368. He has five homers. Senior Hudson Barrett leads the Titans with six homers on the season. The team has slugged 18 home runs this season.

In comparison, Righetti has hit just five homers this year. The Warriors, though, have hit .334 as a team. Frontier is hitting .266.

Smith leads the Warriors in hits with 37 on the season. He's batting .416 with 15 runs, 25 RBIs, five doubles and two triples. Senior Gavin Long is second on the team with 35 hits and a .393 average. He has 37 runs and 21 RBIs. Center fielder Adrian Santini, a junior, leads the team with 28 RBIs. He's hitting .309 with 30 runs, five doubles and a triple.

JJ Ughoc, a junior third baseman, is tied for second on the team in RBIs with 25. He's batting .350 with 23 runs, six doubles, three triples and two home runs.

Catcher Brodie Miller, yet another junior, is batting .382 on the season with 29 hits, 12 runs, 24 RBIs, four doubles and a triple.

On the mound, Smith is 7-0 with a 0.90 ERA in 46 2/3 innings. He has 41 strikeouts. Reynoso leads the team with 59 2/3 innings pitched and 59 strikeouts. He has a 1.64 ERA on the season.

Bagby has dealt with a back injury this season but has worked to make his way back to the mound. He has 45 strikeouts in 41 1/3 innings this season with a 1.35 ERA.

Those three are a combined 20-3 on the mound this season.

Meanwhile in Division 2, No. 2 Arroyo Grande, a Mountain League member like Righetti, will host No. 6 Clovis East in a semifinal. The Eagles are 21-10 on the year. They lost to Madera in the Div. 2 final a year ago. The Timberwolves are 17-14.

No. 5 Bakersfield Ridgeview hosts No. 9 Fresno Central in the other Div. 2 semifinal.

Arroyo Grande opened the 16-team bracket with a 12-1 win over No. 15 Nipomo. The Eagles then beat No. 7 Clovis 6-1 last Thursday. Clovis East beat No. 11 Templeton, a Mountain League team, 8-3 and then beat No. 14 Clovis North 6-5 in a game that was interrupted by an on-field melee between multiple players last week.

The Eagles are led by a deep, experienced team that features multiple players from the storied World Series championship team at the Babe Ruth level a few years ago. Josiah Cabreros, Marc Byrum, Kaden Tynes, Ty Scrudato, Andrew Zickuhr and Aiden Ostrov were all on that 2018 Babe Ruth team that won the World Series in Arkansas.

Now they're trying to get a CIF championship.

But this team is deep all around. Freshman Judah Hill has been a spark plug and senior Niko Ikenoyama went 4-for-4 with two RBIs in the win over Clovis. Byrum went 2-for-4 with a run and Cabreros drove in a pair after he had a three-run homer against Nipomo. Carter Schuck has provided some thump at the bottom of the order and catcher Ryan Tayman, a Cal commit, is a major factor on offense and defense.

Tynes went 6 2/3 innings against Clovis, striking out eight and allowing one earned run. Byrum may get the ball against Clovis East.

Softball semifinals

No. 6 Nipomo and No. 10 Orcutt Academy meet in an intriguing CIF-CS Div. 6 semifinal. The No. 6 Titans host the No. 10 Spartans.

These teams have an interesting storyline. They went 1-1-1 during the regular season as Ocean League foes.

Also, both teams have been greatly boosted by the returns of their starting pitchers who both suffered the same injury. Nipomo senior Key-annah Pu'a and Orcutt Academy senior Danica Black missed parts of their seasons with torn ACLs suffered during the summer.

Both have pitched their teams into the semifinals. Orcutt Academy won 8-5 at No. 7 Laton in the first round and then beat No. 15 Corcoran 7-1 in the quarterfinals last week after Corcoran upset No. 2 seed Visalia Central Valley Christian.

Nipomo pummeled No. 11 Firebaugh 15-2 in its first round game and then cruised past No. 3 Parlier 10-1 in the quarterfinals.

Pu'a is 4-3 with a 1.30 ERA on the season. He has 76 strikeouts in 43 innings. Black is 9-5 with a 2.33 ERA in 96 innings. She has 108 strikeouts on the season.

Black leads the Spartans with a .529 average. She has 36 hits in 26 games with 18 runs, 19 RBIs, five doubles and two triples.

Velen Velazquez is hitting .307 on the season with 23 hits and 27 runs on the year. She has seven doubles and five triples.

Nipomo sophomore Melania Ruelas is hitting .424 on the season with 20 runs, 16 RBIs, five doubles, three triples and two homers.

Pu'a has played in 14 games and is hitting .364 with 12 hits, 15 runs, five RBIs and two homers.

Over in Division 4, Pioneer Valley has had one of the most excruciatingly tense playoffs of any team in the Central Section. The Panthers play at No. 4 2 Mission Prep in the semifinals in San Luis Obispo on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

No. 11 Pioneer Valley needed eight innings to beat No. 6 Delano Chavez 9-8 in the first round and last Friday needed all of 12 innings to beat No. 3 Shafter 9-8. The teams were tied 2-2 after seven innings. The Panthers led 4-2 in the ninth, but allowed Shafter to tie the game and force more extras. Then the Panthers went up 8-4 in the 11th before the Generals tied the game again, forcing a 12th and final inning where the Panthers scored a run and held on.

Pioneer Valley freshman pitcher Ciena Acosta threw 10 innings last Friday and struck out 13, throwing 198 pitches. Jazmyn Molina threw two innings.

Pioneer Valley is 17-12-1. Mission Prep is 19-8.

Precious Zeledon went 5-for-6 with two RBIs in the win over Shafter. Rianna Dulay had three RBIs.

No. 4 Morro Bay, another Ocean League team, plays at No. 1 Orange Cove in the other Div. 4 semifinal.

The softball championship games are slated for Friday and Saturday at Fresno State's Margie Wright Diamond. The times are TBD.