Petaluma meets Ukiah for NCS baseball championship

It’s been three years since the North Coast Section last held baseball championships, and four local teams are looking to emerge from the COVID interruption by etching their names into the history books.

Cardinal Newman, Petaluma, Ukiah and Credo will be looking to bring home section championships banners this weekend. For two of those schools, it would be the first time ever.

Also at stake is a spot in the first-ever CIF Northern California regional playoffs. Nine teams from the NCS will advance to the regionals, which were originally set to make their debut in 2020. Six of the spots will go to section champions, while the other three will be populated by the highest runner-up seeds.

For instance, if Cardinal Newman, the No. 1 seed in Division 3, loses in the section championship, it will still have a good chance at being selected as an at-large bid for regionals. But for a team like Ukiah, the No. 9 seed in Division 2, it would likely need to win Saturday’s section finale to advance.

Here’s a closer look at the four teams playing for section titles this weekend.

Division 2

Petaluma (21-8), No. 3 seed

Last section title: 1980

Last section title game appearance: 1998

2022 section playoffs: 10-2 win over No. 14 De Anza, 8-3 win over No. 6 Tamalpais, 5-2 win over No. 7 Redwood

Championship game: vs. No. 9 Ukiah (19-9), Saturday, 1 p.m., Petaluma High School

Unlike his team, first-year head coach Scott Osder is no stranger to this stage of the postseason. Back in 2014, he led Tamalpais to an NCS Division 3 title and sees some similarities between that team and this one.

“In terms of getting them to be in position to win this, yes, there is a blueprint, but they have to play, too,” Osder said on Wednesday night after the Trojans’ semifinal win. “And we’ve just played really well.”

Osder said he knew at the start of the year that Petaluma wasn’t short on talent. They have three Division I commits in Joe Brown (Cal), Aaron Davainis (Cal) and Wyatt Davis (Fresno State) — and Davainis, a junior, was the Vine Valley Athletic League Co-MVP and Pitcher of the Year. He threw a complete game with eight strikeouts on Wednesday.

Still, it took Petaluma a few weeks into the season to find their footing. The Trojans opened the year 3-4 with a few ugly losses but righted the ship entering VVAL play. They ultimately went 11-1 to win the league title and finished the regular season 18-8 overall.

“It’s been one of the most remarkable runs I’ve ever seen as a coach because we weren’t very good first few weeks into the season,” Osder said. “Just to watch them figure it out and turn it around and play this well the last six weeks of the year has been really, really fascinating to watch.

“We’ve got good players, but they just figured it out and they just literally have willed themselves to win game after game after game. They’re just playing with a lot of confidence right now and we’re playing really good baseball.”

Ukiah (19-9), No. 9 seed

Last section title: Never

Last section title game appearance: 2007

2022 section playoffs: 1-0 win over No. 8 Vintage, 1-0 win over No. 1 Marin Catholic, 5-4 win over No. 4 Casa Grande

Championship game: at No. 3 Petaluma (21-8), Saturday, 1 p.m., Petaluma High School

The Cinderella team of the NCS, Ukiah is the lowest remaining seed out of the 12 teams across all six divisions in title games this weekend.

The Wildcats were a frisky squad that finished third in the North Bay League-Oak. They beat league co-champ Windsor once and played the other co-champ Cardinal Newman tough three times but suffered two 3-2 losses.

So far in the postseason, they’ve gotten the breaks they didn’t during the regular season. They’ve advanced to the title game on three straight, one-run wins, all on the road against higher seeds.

Luke Schat tossed a three-hit shutout in their opener against Vintage, Austin Ford followed with a four-hit shutout at top-seeded Marin Catholic and Jace Pullins came up clutch with a game-winning RBI single in the top of the seventh in their 5-4 win over Casa Grande in the semis. Ethan Holbrook had the RBI hits in each of their first two games.

Head coach Aaron Ford still remembers when Ukiah came up agonizingly short in the NCS playoffs in the late ʼ90s.

“We were one out away from making the semis in ʼ98 when I coached with Coach (Dennis) Busse,” he said on Wednesday after the Wildcats’ win in the semis. “We lost to Amador Valley being up by five runs, and we ended up losing in the seventh. We were just like this team, a ton of good ballplayers, a ton of grit. I mean, we’re here for a reason, because we’ve worked hard.”

The Wildcats will reprise their underdog role once again on Saturday.

“Are we better than a nine seed? I don’t know. Does it matter to me? No. Does it matter to my guys? No,” Ford said. “I mean, we already know that we might have to face the two or the one depending on what side of the bracket we go to. … We were a 16-9 team and it is what it is. Playoffs are a totally different animal, so it’s just about grinding it out and competing.”

Division 3

Cardinal Newman (23-5), No. 1 seed

Last section title: Never

Last section title game appearance: 2008

2022 section playoffs: 2-1 win over No. 16 Miramonte, 10-0 win over No. 8 Las Lomas, 10-0 win over No. 4 Campolindo

Championship game: vs. No. 7 San Marin (18-8-1), Friday, 5 p.m., at Cardinal Newman High SchoolA section title, a goal since last season ended, is well within reach for Cardinal Newman.

The Cardinals’ success has been well documented this season. They won 13 straight games at one point in the season to break into the top 25 of the CalHi Sports state rankings and climb to as high as No. 14 before stumbling a bit to close out the regular season at 20-5 overall.

They seem to have gotten their groove back in the postseason. They’re entering Friday’s championship coming off consecutive 10-0, mercy-rule wins.

For as much success and talented that the program has boasted in the past, a section title has remained elusive. And while the Cardinals are confident and excited to be at this stage, they’re not taking Friday’s task lightly.

“It would be big,” senior Gavin Rognlien, committed to play at Santa Clara next year, said on Tuesday of potentially winning the program’s first section title. “It would mean a lot, especially for the seniors last year, just because we didn’t get that opportunity. So, to bring it home for them would be huge.”

Division 6

Credo (12-9), No. 2 seed

Last section title: 2019

Last section title game appearance: 2019

2022 section playoffs: 17-1 win over San Francisco Waldorf, 16-4 win over No. 3 Ferndale

Championship game: at No. 1 St. Bernard’s (23-5), Friday, 7 p.m., at Redwood Acres Baseball Park, Eureka

Credo, a school that was founded in 2011 and has only had a baseball program for less than a decade, will be looking to capture its second section title.

The Gryphons are actually the defending Division 6 champs. They brought home the school’s first-ever section title in any sport when, as the No. 2 seed, they defeated No. 1 seed South Fork 8-3 in the 2019 title game.

“At the beginning of the season we saw that this could be a possibility for us,” head coach John Aliotti said. “This was the goal, to make it back into the tournament and make it as far as we could, and there are a lot of things that have to go right. It’s not like we thought it was guaranteed at any level, but we knew that it was not beyond the realm of possibility.”

The script has played out eerily similar this postseason compared to 2019. Credo will once again make the long trip up to Humboldt, where they’ll face off against top-seeded St. Bernard’s and Stanford-bound ace Nick Dugan.

On paper, St. Bernard’s is the heavy favorite. It’s won 12 of the last 13 games and has outscored opponents 156-15 over that span. The Crusaders have wins over larger schools like Middletown (10-4), Clear Lake (13-0), McKinleyville (5-3), Fortuna (5-1), Eureka (7-2) and Arcata (4-3), which was the top overall seed for the NCS Division 4 playoffs.

Credo, the runner-up in the North Central League II, understands the difficult task at hand and is approaching the game with a nothing-to-lose mindset.

“There’s an element of, ‘Hey, we made it back, we get the opportunity to defend our championship, and that’s great,’” Aliotti said. “I couldn’t have asked for anything more than that. I would love to win this game, and we’re gonna go and probably really think about small ball with this pitcher who is really good, and if we’re smart, who knows what happens?”

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.