St. Mary’s of Stockton catcher Maddox Rabara (left) got the game-winning hit and caught all of the final strikes thrown by pitcher Dax Hardcastle (right), who struck out 13 during team’s win on Friday that clinched CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D1 title. Photo: Mark Tennis.
In the first major division CIF section baseball championship played this year in the state on Friday in Sacramento, St. Mary’s of Stockton won its second CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D1 title in the last three years with a 2-0 win over defending champion Franklin of Elk Grove. One of the state’s best players, senior Dax Hardcastle, went the distance on the mound and capped the night with a two-hitter and 13 strikeouts.
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It’s going to be a bit of a strange off-week coming up for the St. Mary’s of Stockton baseball team after the Rams blanked Franklin of Elk Grove, 2-0, on Friday at Sacramento City College to win the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D1 title.
All of the rest of the CIF’s sections will conduct section championships in baseball over the next week and into next weekend. The Sac-Joaquin Section had altered its schedule thinking that by next year all of the other sections in the state will also be wrapping up on the same weekend with the addition of CIF state baseball championship games matching the winners from Northern and Southern California. The CIF State Federated Council voted late last month to add those events to the calendar. Those dates will all indeed be matched up by next season.
The Rams (27-6) clinched their spot in the CIF NorCal regional playoffs with their win in last week’s best-of-three D1 section semifinals vs Granite Bay since both SJS D1 finalists get to go. They will now look to gain a high seed for the NorCal D1 bracket, which also depends of course on which teams win out in the CIF North Coast Section (where defending NorCal D1 champ De La Salle resides) and in the CIF Central Coast Section (where St. Francis of Mountain View is the top seed in the top division at 22-3).
Franklin coaches and players also will be paying attention to the other section finals in Northern California, including the CIF Central Section.
While the Wildcats will be in the regionals, they could perhaps be placed in D2 and not D1. This is because they will be behind SJS D2 champion Elk Grove, which won its section title on Thursday night with a win against Rodriguez of Fairfield. Elk Grove won the same Delta League that Franklin is in and recently beat the Wildcats in a best-of-three series. Elk Grove (27-6) also has a head-to-head win over St. Mary’s, but the Rams later won the Boras Classic for Northern California. It wouldn’t be a shock if Elk Grove took the section’s No. 1 spot into the NorCal D1 playoffs but St. Mary’s also is generally ranked higher, including at No. 11 for last week’s State TOP 35 Rankings that we do at Cal-Hi Sports. Elk Grove was right behind at No. 13.
The Central Section is down to Liberty of Bakersfield (23-7) and Bullard of Fresno (17-8) for its D1 title, which will be played next Saturday in Visalia. If Liberty wins, CIF precedence shows it would go to the SoCal regional playoffs while if Bullard wins it would go north. A Liberty win might just about wrap it up for St. Mary’s, Elk Grove and Franklin to all be D1 for the NorCal playoffs.
A St. Mary’s player gets to wear the snake stuffed animal after every win and the obvious choice after the Sac-Joaquin Section D1 title game win was senior pitcher Dax Hardcastle.
The game on Saturday in Sacramento, which because it was the only game of the week for both teams, enabled both head coaches Jason Lindholm of St. Mary’s and Bryan Kilby of Franklin to use their top pitchers. For St. Mary’s, that meant Mississippi State commit Dax Hardcastle, who has displayed big-time stuff all spring after earning all-state underclass honors last season primarily for his power hitting. For Franklin, the plan was for junior Ryan Cody to start with senior Dylan Minnatee (LSU signer who along with Hardcastle probably are the top two players in the section).
Both pitchers eerily began the same way by issuing leadoff walks. Hardcastle wound up striking out the side in the top of the first, with the third strikeout coming after leadoff hitter Andrew Flores of Franklin had reached third base on a wild pitch and passed ball. Cody induced fly balls to get the final two outs with leadoff hitter Ethan Silva at second base (he stole it).
In the top of the fifth inning, Hardcastle faced Franklin having runners on first and second with just one out after an apparent double play ball was misplayed into an error. He then struck out the next two batters.
In the top of the sixth, the Wildcats used an error and a sacrifice bunt to put a runner in scoring position with one out, but again Dax was up to the task with the next two batters going down on strikes.
Cody continued to do his part to keep St. Mary’s off the scoreboard and keep the pitching duel tied at 0-0. In the bottom of the sixth, however, he seemed to lose some steam. A pair of walks after one out led to Kilby replacing Cody with Minnatee. The LSU recruit got one out on a ground ball, but then catcher Maddox Rabara came through with the biggest hit of his career with a looping fly ball toward left field that fell in for a double. Both runners — pinch runner Bryant Kemp and David Haggerty — scored and that was all Hardcastle needed to keep the Wildcats off the scoreboard in the top of the seventh.
Franklin of Elk Grove standout Dylan Minnatee manages to smile during post-game ceremonies after team’s loss in section final to St. Mary’s. Photo: Mark Tennis.
The final batter for Franklin struck out with Cody at first base after he had gotten just the second hit of the game with one out. It marked the 13th of the game for Hardcastle, who got most of his strikeouts on batters that were on called strikes and not on swings.
“I’ve always pitched in my career,” said Hardcastle, who had the deepest drive of the game on a foul ball to left in the top of the sixth but then struck out for the first out of that inning. “It just takes work ethic to be able to do both. The curve ball was working real well tonight. Everything was, really.”
Lindholm, whose team won in the D1 section final two years ago but lost to Franklin in the same game last year, said the Rams have extreme confidence whenever Hardcastle or the team’s other top pitcher, Nico Bavaro (UCLA recruit), are getting the start.
“When either of them is there, we just don’t think we’re going to lose that game,” he said. “Two years ago, it was a fun bus ride home. Last year, not so much. It should be fun this time.”
Bavaro, who got the game-winning hit and caught Hardcastle’s gem, was perhaps the happiest of all the Rams on the way home.
“I just got my pitch and just really happy that it fell in,” he said. “I feel honestly blessed to be on one of the best teams around and have complete confidence in Dax. He doesn’t really have to get a lot of strikeouts with runners on because usually there’s not too many guys on base against him.”
Franklin will take a 22-9-1 record into the regionals. The Wildcats were No. 20 in last week’s State TOP 35 and likely will stay inside the top 25 despite the loss.
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