Mission Bay baseball wins CIF Div. IV championship

The Mission Bay Buccaneers won the CIF Div. IV Section Championship after a dramatic 5-4 victory over Fallbrook on May 27.

“Different players stepped up grinding at-bats and timely hits. The outfielders covered a ton of ground,” said head coach Dennis Gildehaus.

After finding themselves down by two runs to Fallbrook to end the first inning, Mission Bay cut the lead in half with a run in the top of the third and would tack on four more in the top of the sixth thanks in large part to second baseman Josh Morgan who singled with the bases loaded.

Despite Fallbrook scoring two more in the bottom half of the sixth inning, the Bucs were able to shut them down in the seventh for the one-run victory.

“I was looking for something up in the zone,” said Morgan. “We did a good job of putting guys on base and fighting the whole game. As a senior you dream of that, it doesn’t happen that often, but everyone wants that.”

Mission Bay kicked off the playoffs with a 7-4 win over Calexico on May 18 followed by back-to-back wins over San Ysidro, 4-1 on May 20, and 11-1 on May 24. What made the performances all the more impressive was the fact that both Calexico and San Ysidro had gone 9-0 in their respective leagues during the season.

“Starting pitching during playoffs was fantastic,” Gildehaus added. Overall, the starting pitching gave up only three walks during the entire postseason.

Mission Bay’s playoff run was possible thanks to a dramatic turnaround after having finished the first 11 games with a 4-7 record but bouncing back by going 14-3 the rest of the way all while outscoring the opponents 133 to 38 during that span to finishing the season with a 22-10 record, including the four postseason wins.

“We played well against Calexico in the first game,” Morgan added. “Then we played two really clean games against San Ysidro. It feels nice to win, I love to win.”

The championship is the sixth overall in school history and the first for Mission Bay since 2004 when then shortstop, and first overall draft pick by the San Diego Padres, Matt Bush was on the team.