The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.
The College of San Mateo athletic teams will not play at another Northern California location this season.
They can thank their winning ways for that.
All of their remaining competition prior to any participation in the state championships will be at home, making for a busy first two weekends of May at their hilltop campus.
The CSM softball and baseball teams received No. 2 seeds for the Northern California playoffs, meaning they will host first round regional tournaments on Saturday and Sunday.
If they win the best-of-three series, they would host super regional tournaments on May 11-13 for the right to play in the state final four in Bakersfield, May 18-20.
The Coast Conference champion softball team (36-4) will host No. 15 American River College (23-5) of Sacramento on Saturday at 2 p.m. The second game will be Sunday at noon followed by a third game if needed. Seven teams from northern California’s toughest conference made the 16-team field.
CSM makes their way into the playoffs after one of their best regular seasons under head coach Nicole Borg. The Bulldogs won 23 of their last 25 games, including 23 in a row in capturing the Coast Conference North Division. Their 36 wins were tied for second in the state.
No. 15 American River finished third in the Big 8 conference.
In baseball, the Coast Conference Golden Gate champion Bulldogs will host the winner of Tuesday’s play-in game between No. 18 Los Medanos (21-14-1) and No. 15 Cabrillo College (21-15) in Aptos.
Six Coast Conference teams made the 18-team NorCal field including No. 14 Cañada College who will visit No. 3 and Coast Conference Pacific champion Ohlone in Fremont on Saturday and Sunday. The Colts finished four games behind Ohlone in the regular season standings. Cañada was 0-3 against Ohlone in 2012 and were outscored 21-6 overall.
CSM did play Cabrillo earlier in the year – a game they won 4-2.
In track and field, CSM is already set to host the Northern California track and field trials on Friday and the finals the following week. The Bulldogs will have their championship throwers on display.
CSM Swimming update
Miya Oto won her third medal in the 100 freestyle (54.04) during the California state championships Saturday.
“Miya swam great making finals and winning a medal in each of her events,” said CSM head coach Randy Wright via email. “[Saturday] we rolled the dice and went for the win by sprinting from the start. She was up on the front line but just couldn’t hold pace. She had a great meet and a tremendous season. She’s just a freshman, any recruit who wants to swim with the fastest should head to CSM and swim with Miya Oto.”
Oto’s brother Masa placed fifth in the 200 butterfly, picking up his second medal with a time of 1:54.65.
“Masa is done and in my ten years he’s been one of my most rewarding swimmers,” Wright said. “When he entered CSM he was pretty much burned out from swimming, his passion to race has been a wonderful experience.”
According to Wright, Miya and Masa will end this season as All-Americans, when the final list becomes available in two weeks.
Alex Navarro placed 10th in the 100 freestyle and Shelbi Campbell placed 15th in the 100 butterfly. “Both are sophomores and have been a big part of the program,” Wright said.
CSM finished the season as the Coast Conference Champions and had both Most Outstanding Swimmers of the conference finals (Carlos Sanchez and Miya Oto). They won medals at the state championships and will have All-Americans.
“It was a tremendous season,” Wright said. The team has won titles in consecutive years. If you want to race on a big stage you should strongly consider CSM.”
Serra places at Diving Championships
The Padres made quite the splash at the West Catholic Athletic League diving championships.
Ross Poms placed second in the diving event behind Bellarmine Prep’s Collin Pollard. Poms will be one to watch in the future though, as he is only a sophomore. Serra teammate, Erik Clark, took fifth in the championships. He is only a freshman.
In other Serra news, Sean Talmadge was named to the All-WCAL boys’ tennis team along with teammate Matt Campana.
Joey Simpson made the second team. Peter Campana earned an honorable mention nod. So did the doubles team of Alex Frank and Brendon Barrows.
Weekend Baseball
In Peninsula Athletic League action over the weekend, Mills picked up a non-league win over Burlingame 4-1.
Gabriel Ang picked up his fourth win of the season for the Vikings. Joey Carney tallied three RBI and two extra-base hits for Mills – a double and a home run.
Carlmont also notched a non-league win over rival Sequoia 5-1.
Sequoia jumped ahead 1-0 in the top of the first and Carlmont answered with the tying and go-ahead runs in the bottom of the 2nd. With two outs, Aaron Pleschner singled and stole second base. Kai Haake followed with a single to left to drive him in.
Haake then scored on a Cherokee error that extended the inning. Nick Rich’s fielder’s choice ground ball to second base drove in Tanner Westmoreland in the third.
The Scots would score twice more in the bottom of the fifth when Kyle Barret doubled to left and Jason Marley walked to start off the inning. A pair of wild pitches allowed Barret to score and advanced courtesy runner Westmoreland to third. A suicide squeeze was executed to the right side of the mound by Josh Faulkner to bring in Westmoreland.
Ryan McGuire picked up his first win of the year after tossing the first 5 2-3 innings, allowing just the one earned run on six hits and no walks. He stuck out two.
With the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the sixth, Jesse Austin came in to relieve McGuire and faced the final four batters to secure the save.
