Half Moon Bay senior baseball players Andy Hide, Maverick Johnson, Kai Kung, Ian Ehrhardt and Ronin McCauley show off medals &n title plaque after win last Saturday over Livermore. Photo: Ashton J. Hacke / Coastside News.
State Team of the Year honors for the 2026 baseball season also are going out for the four other CIF based playoff divisions. We
have done teams of the year in five divisions for many years and these mythical honors considered all teams that played in CIF section playoffs (including those that opted out of the regionals). All five teams that were ranked No. 1 for the five divisions last week have stayed there at the end.
For more on the 2026 State Team of the Year announcement,
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Congratulations to these five baseball teams for being added to the list of all-time state teams of the year according to our traditional Cal-Hi Sports five-division format:
Division I
St. John Bosco (Bellflower)
Although the Braves do finish No. 1 in the state overall for the second straight season, they would not have been in this year’s CIF state championship game if that event was taking place like it will be at the conclusion of the 2027 season. The teams would have been NorCal D1 champion Valley Christian of San Jose vs SoCal D1 champion Huntington Beach. Sacramento High has been the reigning CIF state champion in baseball since the last of three CIF state title games was played in 1921.
Ganesha of Pomona power-packed left-handed pitcher Logan Schmidt had two complete game shutouts in the CIFSS D2 playoffs. Photo: highheat visuals / Instagram.com.
Division II
Ganesha (Pomona)
This one wasn’t going to change no matter what happened in the CIF SoCal or NorCal D2 playoffs since the Giants were placed No. 1 after they won the CIF Southern Section D2 title and then opted out of the regional playoffs. They had pushed their final record after winning their section title up to 26-3-1.
This also marks the second straight year of Ganesha winning a mythical state title. Last season, the Giants won the CIFSS D4 title and were No. 1 in the final D3 state rankings. They also opted out of the regional playoffs last year as well. It was the first time in school history last year that a baseball team had ended with a final No. 1 state ranking in any division.
The last team from the San Gabriel Valley to earn a top ranking for D2 in the state for baseball was South Hills of West Covina in 2016. You have to go back to Bishop Amat’s back-to-back No. 1 overall teams in the state for 2001 and 2002 for the furthest back from the SGV to be in that spot. In those years, remember, it wasn’t competitive equity seeding and the Lancers won their CIFSS titles in lower divisions and there were years before competitive equity seeding when teams that won CIFSS titles lower than D1 were ranked higher than the champions in D1.
One of Ganesha’s wins in the CIFSS D2 playoffs came by a 2-1 win in the semifinals over Newport Harbor of Newport Beach, which is the team that won the CIF SoCal D2 title last Saturday with a win against Bakersfield Christian. The Giants then beat Loyola of Los Angeles, 6-3, in their title game.
Ganesha only used its ace pitcher, possible MLB first round draft pick Logan Schmidt, for the seventh inning against the Cubs. He picked up a save. Schmidt earlier had shutouts in both the first round and quarterfinals of the playoffs. Ford Stoen pitched into the fourth inning of the final and also is highly regarded. Dyson Grant led the offense with two hits and two runs scored.
There was concern that most of the top players and head coach Jared Sandler were going to miss that title game to travel to a showcase tournament for their travel club team in Mississippi. After a lot of speculation on social media, all was fine for the title game. We hope the team had a good time on their trip.
Division III
Roseville
With more than 100 years in its history, Roseville High has never had a baseball season like this one in 2026. The Tigers have now been named as the 2026 D3 State Team of the Year after they completed a run to the CIF NorCal D1 title last Saturday with a 4-2 victory over Menlo School of Atherton, which was looking to win a second straight regional title after getting it done in D4 last season.
Roseville began as the top seed in the NorCal D3 bracket after winning the title in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D3 playoffs and only lost four times during the regular season with all four losses coming to teams that the Tigers also beat. The biggest question for the Tigers (29-4) entering the regionals wasn’t whether they’d be a favorite in D3 after they lost in the title game of the bracket last season to Rancho Cotate of Rohnert Park but whether they’d get moved up to D2. They didn’t get moved up, then reached the title game with wins of 5-0 over Santa Cruz and then 4-0 over Wheatland, a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section title team from a lower division that did get moved up.
In last Saturday’s final game, Menlo took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but sophomore Ben Jordan cracked a two-run homer in the bottom of the first. Senior Dustin Holcomb, who was the losing pitcher in the same title game last year, pitched the final 3 2/3 innings in this year’s final and didn’t give up a run with two hits allowed and three strikeouts.
In the shutout of Santa Cruz, UC Davis-bound Tyler Ritter pitched six innings with a one-hitter and seven strikeouts. In the shutout of Wheatland, junior Ethan Gustus, who is one of the highest regarded MLB prospects in the state in his class, also fired a one-hitter in six innings and struck out 15. Holcomb pitched one inning in both of those games as well.
While Roseville High is new to being No. 1 in the state in this division, the city is not. Just two years ago, Roseville’s rivals from Oakmont High won the CIF NorCal D3 title and at 30-7 overall also were ranked No. 1 in the final D3 state rankings. The Sac-Joaquin Section also has had some other impressive D3 No. 1 in the state teams in recent years, including Rio Americano of Sacramento in 2021, Los Banos in 2019 and Christian Brothers of Sacramento in 2017.
It’s also very important to mention that this Roseville squad put together a combined GPA in the classroom of 3.67. That is the highest total in the SJS and it’s going to bring the group another banner from the section along with the other ones.
Division IV
Half Moon Bay
The Cougars not only didn’t lose after they won their first ever CIF Central Coast Section title from the previous week and were slotted at No. 1 in the D4 state rankings, but in their three games last week they didn’t give up a run.
Head coach Brian Anderson’s squad locked up Livermore on Saturday in the NorCal final with a 2-0 shutout win. Kai Kung pitched five shutout innings to match the five that he had in a first-round win and finished the season with a 24 1/3 inning scoreless streak. Paxton Holden also contributed on the mound in the title game with the final two shutout innings and struck out four.
Livermore came into the matchup having scored 28 runs in its first two NorCal playoff games. The Cowboys only had a 6-18 record competing in one of the toughest big-school leagues in Northern California, but were placed in the CIF North Coast Section D4 playoffs and went through that bracket to a section title. The run just ended by bumping into an even hotter opponent.
Riley Jackson smashed a solo homer for the Cougars (23-9) in the fifth inning that extended their lead from 1-0 to 2-0. The other run was driven in on a sacrifice fly by Clark Colucci.
It’s obviously Half Moon Bay’s first-ever State Team of the Year finish in baseball, but it was just last year when a different school from San Mateo County, Menlo School of Atherton, was the D4 team of the year. The previous D4 team of the year from CCS before Menlo last year was Pacific Grove in 2011, which was the season when the Breakers made history with their 31-0 final record. There are no others from the CCS in D4 going back to the 1950s, but San Mateo County has had a few in D3 over the years, including Burlingame in 2004.
Ian Ehrhardt, who had the game-winning hit in the CCS championship game and has been a close friend of Kai Kung since the third grade, had a sacrifice bunt that helped get the first run. He is the grandson of the late Bruce McIntosh (died 2017), who helped us out on this website and before that for many years with our magazines and record books as one of the best sports researchers in state history.
Someone got creative with Coastal Academy’s CIF San Diego Section title photo, but while it’s accurate going by the final D5 state rankings there won’t be any CIF state champs in California officially until next year. Photo: sdprepinsider / Instagram.com.
Division V
Coastal Academy (Oceanside)
Among the five teams that were No. 1 in their state division going into the regional semifinals, this one can be described as the only one in which there was a least a thought about the No. 1 team not staying there.
It’s not that the Stingrays didn’t lose in their semifinal game — they in fact won 5-2 over Schurr of Montebello — it’s that they didn’t have to play in a regional final. They were gifted the SoCal regional title by the CIF when there was a fight in the other semifinal game between Verdugo Hills and Roosevelt of Los Angeles, players from both squads left their dugouts, and the CIF ruled all of those players ineligible. Verdugo Hills was leading in the game 6-1 when the incident occurred.
In the NorCal final, it wasn’t just any old game, either. It was super-crazy and hard to describe, but in the eighth inning Minarets of O’Neals had earned the title with 21-20 win over Pacific Grove. We don’t know if that’s a state record for most runs by two teams in a playoff game, but it might be. The game featured Minarets with a 13-0 lead after the second inning, a 10-run inning by Pacific Grove that gave the Breakers a 16-13 lead, then a four-run rally in the bottom of the seventh for Minarets that tied the score at 19-19. Pacific Grove then scored once in the top of the eighth, but gave up two in the bottom of the eighth.
We just very rarely will drop a team from a No. 1 ranking when that team doesn’t lose and it’s certainly no fault of anyone or any player at Coastal Academy for what happened in the other semifinal.
The Stingrays (25-7) won their CIF San Diego Section division title with a 4-3 win over a Canyon Hills squad that won 24 games. They had a computer ranking last week about 60 spots higher than Minarets but were seeded No. 2 in the SoCal bracket behind Verdugo Hills due to a head-to-head loss from early in the season but Verdugo Hills also had 19 losses overall. They had a 1-2 record in league games vs Francis Parker, which was in the CIF SoCal D4 playoffs and won a section title in San Diego one division higher.
Junior Jayce Costephens led Coastal Academy with 49 hits, 52 runs scored, a .544 batting average and 10 home runs. Senior Sammy Senigaglia, who also batted .478 with 32 RBI, led the Stingrays in pitching. He had an 8-2 record with a 0.10 ERA and had 93 strikeouts in 67 2/3 innings.
This is the first time that a CIF San Diego Section school has ended No. 1 in the final D5 state rankings. There are some years in the 1970s and earlier in which Holtville and Imperial are listed, but those schools weren’t in the SD Section in those seasons.
We know that there are teams out there with D5 enrollments that were moved up in their section playoffs that may be superior to Coastal Academy, but we just don’t have the time to check the enrollment numbers of all these schools in the state and place teams in our own divisions. We have to go by what divisions the CIF state and CIF sections puts these teams in and go from there.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
