Brandon Rowley
Clay Arritt199 pitches. As Andrew Phillips gets set on the mound in the state championship, his body feels every single one of them.
It’s the bottom of the ninth as the Dons’ pitcher stares down the Comets’ Gavin Malcomson in the batter’s box.
With the grueling schedule of the playoffs, this is the second time in three days Phillips has had to take the mound; 113 in his first appearance, and 86 in this one so far.
“By the end of the game, my body was tired, my arm was hanging on by a thread, but I knew in my head that I needed to push through for my team,” said Phillips. “That’s what was giving me the strength.”
With a runner on first and one out on the board, he winds up to throw number 200. Both teams hang on the rails of the dugout, pulling on the netting separating them from the action.
His pitch cuts through the air; history has its eyes on this moment. The pitch gets lined back at the mound, over Phillips’ head, and there’s nothing he can do but watch.
Second baseman Aiden Marquez scoops up the bouncing liner, steps on the bag, and launches it to first. Double play. Ball game.
The Dons swarm the field; they’ve done it. Five games, three days, one championship, something they can never take away.
The Santa Ana Dons won the California Community College State Championship this weekend, earning their fifth title for the program while also achieving a 44-7-1 record, the best in school history.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” said head coach Tom Nilles. “I feel like in 2023, when we won it, I didn’t enjoy it enough. This thing’s special, man. It’s really hard to do this thing.”
GAME ONE vs Ohlone – Saturday, 6 p.m.
Santa Ana began their memorable weekend with a bang by defeating the Ohlone Renegades by a final score of 10-4.
Ohlone’s starting pitcher, Matthew Anderson, came into this game leading the state in victories. He would instead get charged for the loss in this one, with Santa Ana doing enough damage to have him removed in the third inning, scoring seven runs.
The Dons, whose powerful offense has been their identity all season long, struck for four runs in the top of the first inning. Evan Reiter got things started with a run-scoring double down the left-field line, and it was Nikko Paoletto who had the biggest swing in the inning two batters later. He hammered a three-run home run to extend the lead to four.
“I saw that he threw Barrett two fastballs,” Paoletto said. “So I thought he was going to challenge me too, and I just didn’t miss it, and it was electric, for sure.”
Paoletto is a player you just can’t miss, always showing emotion on the field and in the dugout, and it showed up big-time in this tournament. “It’s almost everything,” he said about bringing the energy. “You win baseball games on the field, but you win championships in the dugout, everyone cheering, everyone fired up, really helped us out a lot.”
In the top of the third inning, Santa Ana would add three more, thanks in part to a two-run double from Ben Melendrez.
The offense would continue to roll in the fourth, after Jack Mueller hit a home run on the first pitch of the inning. Ken Tomitaka would add a run-scoring single of his own to make it a commanding 9-0 lead.
Phillips got the start in game one, which is a spot usually occupied by Josh Rodriguez, who has been dealing with a tricep injury late in the season.
“The main reason was so if we ended up getting in a bad spot, and had to play more games, I’m gonna be able to go again on Monday,” Phillips said. “I like setting the tone,” he continued. “I knew I had my good stuff early, and got kind of iffy nearing the end, but early on I was throwing a lot of strikes, and felt really good.”
He would earn his ninth victory of the season to remain undefeated, completing five innings of work while allowing four runs.
“Phillips has been lights out for us,” Coach Nilles said. “Winning game one is about as important as it gets in this thing. If you win your first two games, I think it’s like an 85% success rate to win a state title.”
Johnny Morales would relieve Phillips to begin the sixth inning, and he had his swing-and-miss stuff working. He was dominant, going the final four innings scoreless, while striking out eight. It was the second save of the season for Morales, with his first coming last week, sending the Dons to the state championship.
“It feels electric,” Morales said. “I’m getting the trust from my coaches, I understand that they want the ball in my hand, and I gotta give it back to them. My slider command was there, and they just kept swinging over it, and I just kept throwing it.”
The final run for the Dons came from Reiter on a failed pickoff attempt by the Renegades, resulting in two errors after the ball was misplayed by the center-fielder, in a game where they committed four of them.
Both teams that won Saturday would play each other on Sunday, meaning Santa Ana would take on Palomar in a powerhouse matchup, with the winner earning a trip to the state championship game.
“Everyone’s available, every day. Phillps is available too,” Coach Nilles said about bullpen availability over the weekend. “They’re gonna have a long time off. This is it. We got two more days. It’s nut-cutting time.”
GAME TWO vs. Palomar Comets – Sunday 2 p.m.
After the high of their opening win, the Dons came back down to earth against the Palomar Comets, the #1 seed from the SoCal region.
The Comets started off the first inning with a walk, a single and back-to-back bunts to put heavy pressure on the starter, Rodriguez, and the Dons’ defense.
Palomar would tack on five hits and four earned runs on Rodriguez, resulting in him being pulled after 2.1 innings.
But in a desperate situation, the Dons needed a hero to keep them in the game, and up stepped Freshman Travis Bergmann.
Only having pitched 17.1 innings over the entire season, Bergmann was handed the ball early out of the bullpen and put in a tough situation against the top-ranked Comets.
He would go on to pitch 6.2 scoreless innings, only allowing two hits for the rest of the game, undoubtedly his best performance of the year to keep Palomar at bay.
“Berg’s a freshman, just really getting his bearings under him, struggled at times, pitched well at times,” said Nilles. “We know that guy has a chance to be special, and for him to do that was incredible.”
In the third inning, with two men on base, Marquez sent a fly ball over the center field wall to bring the Dons within one run.
Marquez’s homer forced Comets’ pitcher Elijah Stephens out of the game, bringing in reliever Cody Cappelletti.
Cappelletti would then breeze through the Dons’ lineup, striking out seven and holding them to two hits over 4.1 scoreless innings.
“Man, they owned us. They were good,” said Nilles. “We got to cover the outer half; we punched out looking so many times on my fastballs just away, it was kind of embarrassing.”
The game remained at a 4-3 standstill with no real threats of scoring until the eighth. After Bergmann got out of a jam with two runners in scoring position at the top of the inning, the Dons needed to respond in the bottom half.
Barrett Ronson and Paoletto both reached base and then advanced to second and third on a wild pitch with one out. But unfortunately, the Dons didn’t capitalize, grounding and striking out to end the frame.
On their last legs in the bottom of the ninth, Comets reliever Jude Atley stepped up in a big way, striking out all three Dons in 11 pitches, sending his team straight to the state championship with no losses in the double elimination format.
Now with their backs against the wall, the Dons had to win three straight games to win the championship: a redemption bracket game against the NorCal region #2 Feather River Golden Eagles, and then two potential rematches against Palomar on Monday.
“They just have a decision to make,” said Nilles. “Whether or not they want to keep playing, it’s up to them.”
GAME THREE vs Feather River – Sunday 6 p.m.
45 minutes after the conclusion of the Palomar game, Santa Ana had to stay on the field to play Feather River, who defeated Ohlone at 11 a.m., giving them about four more hours of rest.
The semi-rested Golden Eagles would strike first, scoring one in the first off of starter Zach Ireland.
Playing a doubleheader, the Dons started sluggish, with two singles and no scoring opportunities through the first three innings.
Ireland kept the game close, striking out five over the first four innings. “Throw strikes, get ahead, get guys out early, and bring the energy,” he said. “It’s what I do best.”
That energy was exactly what Santa Ana needed, firing them up to the tune of five runs in the fourth inning, topped off by a Melendrez rocket down the left field line that could be heard from across the Great Park.
This was a wound the Golden Eagles couldn’t heal, no matter how many pitchers they threw at the Dons, the explosive offense wouldn’t be tamed, scoring multiple runs in every inning with the exception of the seventh, powering them to 12 runs.
After allowing a run in the first, Ireland went lockdown through seven innings. Four hits and eight strikeouts before slowing down in the eighth, eventually being pulled to a standing ovation.
“That’s huge, that performance is exactly what we wanted out of him,” said Nilles. “We ran him out there for a little bit longer than we should have, but that’s just the product of playing a tournament like this.”
Santa Ana ended Feather River’s “Cinderella run” with a 12-3 final score to advance to play Palomar on Monday.
With the previous loss against the Comets, the Dons would need to win back-to-back games against Palomar in order to be crowned as champions.
“I think we’ll come out tomorrow with some more intent with what we’re going to do in the box, and be on top of baseballs, and hit line drives all over the field, we know we have power,” said Nilles. “I’ll tell you this, if we can make it competitive in game one, game two is gonna be a war.”
GAME FOUR vs Palomar – Monday, 11 a.m.
Memorial Day championship, a date with destiny.
Looking for someone to step up, Adrian Villegas would get the start for the Dons. After not starting a game all season and not pitching more than 1.2 innings in a single outing, they turned to him in the biggest spot. He blew past those numbers, going 5.1 innings on 87 pitches, allowing just two runs and earning the victory.
“I’ve never thrown that many pitches in my life,” Villegas said. “I just had to come and do my job, I felt good, and I told them I could keep going, and I just went until I couldn’t go any more.”
Coach Nilles said it was a “no-brainer.” Villegas has their best stuff, though coming off Tommy John surgery, was assigned to a high-leverage relief role this season.
The offense made this one pretty comfortable for the Dons. After putting up five runs in the second, they would not stop, as the score would eventually be a whopping 19-3.
“It put some doubt into their mind in terms of the way that they were going to be able to pitch to us and whether they were going to be able to hold our offense down in game two,” pitching coach George Carralejo said. “It certainly gave us a lot of momentum.”
The attack was led by Mueller, who hit a grand slam and ended up with four runs and six RBI. Paoletto added another homer of his own, while Tomitaka racked up four hits.
The Dons forced a winner-take-all championship game.
GAME FIVE vs Palomar – Monday, 3:15 p.m.
Colin Galvin, the typical closer, drew the start for the Dons. He hadn’t started a game all season.
The 6’7” power-hitting Stephens struck for a solo homer in the top of the first for Palomar to give them an early lead, his 17th of the season.
Leading off the bottom of the first, Mueller would match Stephens, smacking a solo shot of his own over the left-field fence to tie up the score at one.
“I’m just looking for a pitch to catch out front,” Mueller said. “And you know, just trying to do damage.”
Palomar added another on a sacrifice fly in the second before Stephens hit yet another home run in the third, this one a two-run shot to put Santa Ana down 4-1.
Phillips would relieve Galvin in the third, just two days after throwing 113 pitches and earning the victory against Ohlone.
“I wanted the ball the whole weekend,” Galvin said. “I finally got it, and although it didn’t go completely my way, I was really excited to go out there and compete for my boys.”
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Dons had a golden opportunity with the bases loaded and nobody out, trailing 4-1. Nathaniel Williams hit into a double play to bring a run home, and Melendrez came through with a big two-out run-scoring single to cut the deficit to one.
Phillips would fire off consecutive zeroes, and with two outs in the fifth, Ronson punched a ball through the right side to get a man on for Paoletto. He would continue his heroic tournament with a go-ahead two-run home run to right-center field, his fourth of the weekend, and certainly his biggest.
“I was just trying to stay within myself, not trying to get too big,” Paoletto said. “We have nine amazing hitters, and I was just trying to keep the line going, and a couple of them snuck out, which was awesome.”
The Dons’ powerful offense would continue to add on as Phillips kept defying the odds on the mound.
A double for Reiter in the sixth scored one, and Paoletto was able to score after a balk in the seventh to make it six unanswered.
Palomar had a chance in the top of the seventh with Stephens at the plate and one away, still a two-run game at this point. He hit a deep fly to right, but Paoletto was able to make an insane, leaping, acrobatic catch to take away extra bases.
Two hitters later, now with two men on base, there was a ball hit to shallow right field, and Paoletto again made a terrific catch, this time an all-out dive coming in to end the inning.
“I think that helped us a lot with the momentum, and some might say it helped us win the whole thing,” Paoletto said. “I was not letting that thing drop for Philly. He was working his ass off, and I couldn’t let that fall.”
After that, there was no argument that Paoletto wouldn’t take home the MVP award.
Though Phillips was dazzling himself. His pitch-mix kept the Palomar hitters guessing, and Coach Nilles and the rest of the Dons’ coaching staff didn’t want to fix what wasn’t broken.
They didn’t, and Phillips was the one taking the mound for the ninth in a 7-4 game, with Santa Ana needing just three outs to etch their name in history.
“All I knew was that I was first out of the bullpen after Galvin. I didn’t know when that was gonna come, I didn’t know how many innings,” Phillips said. “I thought I had maybe three in me, probably less. So definitely exceeded my expectations. It was fun, though.”
With one out and a runner on first, Phillips got a liner to Marquez, who took it to second himself, and before Melendrez made the catch at first, the dugout had already begun to empty.
A celebration would turn into a dogpile on the field, as the Santa Ana Dons captured their second state title in four years.
“Incredible,” Coach Nilles said about his team. “This is what you put in all the work for, all the time away. We’re built on coaching and competing, and having some intensity and attitude when we play, and these guys embody that,” he continued. “You need a Villegas to do what he did, you need a Bergman to do what he did. You need a Philly to bounce back. That’s what Adrian is, he was robbed of a season last year with the injury, fricking incredible that he got to do that. So pumped for Bergy, really fired up for Johnny Morales. That’s a fourth-year dude that’s just waited his turn, and just put the work in, that’s what it’s about at our place. [Phillips] didn’t even start on his high school team. How about that? And just to say, I want the ball Saturday so I can pitch Monday. That’s freakin’ incredible. That takes big cojones.”
They had to win three straight games after losing Sunday afternoon and perform a comeback in the winner-take-all game five, and they did, showing the grit and never-give-up attitude possessed by the Dons.
“We got backed into a corner,” Galvin said. “We’re a bunch of fighters, and we punch back.”
This team will forever go down in the record books, finishing with the best record a Santa Ana team has ever had. “Best everything,” assistant coach Dennis Gerbasi said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You could tell before the season, and you don’t know if it’s actually gonna come to fruition. But, man, they lived up to everything.” Many players and coaches echoed the belief this team has had in themselves since they first got together.
“We’re a bunch of tough players in that dugout,” Carlos Morales said. “We don’t back down to nothing. If we have a challenge in front of us, we’re gonna knock it down, and we’re gonna freakin’ accomplish it.”
While many Dons will be onto a different journey next season, undoubtedly to great places, coaches believe they will be right back in the dance in 2027. For now, they will enjoy being state champions.
