Valley Christian High Plays For NCS Division V Baseball Title

Valley Christian High's baseball team will square off against Head-Royce this weekend for the North Coast Section Division V championship.

The game begins at 4 p.m. Saturday at Fremont Christian High.

Valley Christian, the number one seed in the tournament, is 19-7 on the season. They reached the final by defeating fifth-seeded Athenian School on Wednesday.

Head-Royce, the number two seed, is 22-5 this season. They reached the final by knocking off third-seeded St. Bernard Catholic on Wednesday.

Valley Christian won two of the three games they played against Head-Royce during the regular season.

According to Sandy Lininger Stevens, these two teams also met last year in the Championship game. 

"This year we are hoping for a Valley Christian win," Stevens wrote, via email.

Athletic Director Scott Babinat told Patch, via email:

"Early on our team had some struggles because our catcher, Evan Opperman, was out with a broken finger, which led to a lot of shifting of personnel.  We seemed to hit a good stride when we went to the Fort Bragg tournament and won vs. 3 larger schools – Miramonte, Fortuna and Fort Bragg.  Our league is one of the toughest small school leagues in the state.  This will be the 5th year in a row that a BCL-E team will walk away with the D-5 NCS championship. This is the second year in a row that we have tied with Head Royce for the BCL-E Championship, and the second year in a row that we had to play them for the automatic bid to NCS.  This is the second year in a row that we have secured the #1 seed in NCS for D-5, and the second year in a row that we will meet Head Royce for the championship.

We have had very strong pitching performances from Jared Dalrymple, Jake Collishaw, and Josh Stevens as starters and also from  Evan Opperman closing out games.  Defense has also been a strong point of this team.  VCHS has made good use of the running game with an average of almost 4.5 stolen bases a game.

The team has received good leadership from seniors Will Cantrell and Evan Opperman.

Josh Stevens and Vince Volpatti have led the team in hitting.

BCL-E All league recipients:

• 1st Team – Josh Stevens, Vince Volpatti, Jake Collishaw, Will Cantrell, and Jared Dalrymple
• 2nd Team – Hunter Schaefer
• Honorable Mention – Evan Opperman