After a rain-filled start to the baseball season, which forced each of the five local prep programs to postpone or cancel multiple games, the ballplayers are back on the diamond, sharpening their skills ahead of conference play.
Trans-Valley League play, featuring two-time defending champion Hughson and perennial playoff contender Hilmar, will begin Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Central California Athletic League, which includes a Turlock team also looking to three-peat and a Pitman squad that has come out of the gates hot, gets underway next week.
As for Turlock Christian in the Central California Athletic Alliance, league play doesn’t start till March 25, and until then, will continue to test in a strong preseason slate. And in neighboring Denair, it is shaping up to be a year of rebuilding following a strong 2025 campaign.
Pitman (4-1)
No team had a hotter start than the Pride, who began the season winning its first four games and outscoring opponents East Union (Manteca), Central Valley (Ceres), Tracy and Buhach Colony (Atwater) by a combined score of 34-11.
A team that fielded a roster of plenty of underclassmen in recent seasons, that varsity experience appears to be paying off.
At the plate, the Pride’s senior core of Nolan Walker, Jackson Way and Ben Vilhauer have led the way.
Through the team’s first five games, Walker is hitting .462 with six hits (one home run and a double) and seven drawn walks with seven RBI and three stolen bases and eight runs scored. Way is hitting .438 with seven hits (two triples) with 10 runs scored. Vilhauer is hitting .385 with five hits (two doubles) and a whopping nine runs plated with the speedsters ahead of him in the lineup, though he has two stolen bases and two runs scored himself.
In the middle of it all is also junior Cole Kelley, batting .455 with five hits including a double and one RBI.
On the mound, Vilhauer has pitched the most innings, 14 2/3, and has earned two of the team’s wins, sporting a 2.39 ERA and a 14:6 strikeout to walk ratio.
The Pride had an outlier of a performance on Monday, getting blanked 9-0 at home to Lincoln of Stockton, and will try to get back to their winning ways on Wednesday in a road clash with Atwater.
Turlock (3-4)
The Bulldogs had a similarly hot start, winning its first three games against Patterson, Damonte Ranch of Reno and East Union by a combined score of 32-10.
Over the last week, though, higher quality opponents have proven difficult for Turlock to overcome.
After defeating Damonte Ranch 9-7 and East Union 10-0 in the first two rounds of Downey High’s March Madness tournament across Modesto, the Bulldogs lost 11-6 to Oakdale in their bracket championship. A pair of one-run losses, 5-4 to Lodi and 6-5 to Clovis, followed. The Bulldogs returned to Mark de la Motte Field on Tuesday, where the streak hit four as they fell to El Capitan of Merced by a 6-4 score.
The Bulldogs have an experienced senior trio of their own having success at the plate in Cooper Pacheco, Adam Torres and Owen McCord.
Pacheco has served as Turlock’s top bat through the team’s first five games, hitting .438 with seven knocks (three doubles, a triple and a home run), six walks and five RBI. Also getting on base at a rapid pace has been Torres, batting .421 with eight hits, including a home run and three RBI. On the basepaths, he has stolen nine bases, helping contribute to his mark of 10 total runs scored. McCord, meanwhile, has an identical average and hits mark, though he has driven in and himself scored seven runs.
Pacheco is also leading the club on the mound. In three appearances, Pacheco has a 0.58 ERA with five strikeouts over 12 frames. Junior Mason Hackler has shown off his electric arm, striking out 18 in 13 innings over three appearances while giving up seven runs.
The Bulldogs will hope to halt the skid on Friday as they host Lincoln.
Turlock Christian (4-2)
The Eagles won the first three games of the season, with a 6-1 win over Johansen, 17-7 win over Denair and 16-1 victory against Delhi over a three-game homestand at Pedretti Park. The team then split a two-game series with Big Valley Christian on March 2 and 3 before losing to Hilmar, 15-5. They’ll have a two-game series with Tracy’s Delta Charter next week before CCAA play starts.
The Eagles have seven players batting over .350 — Cam Kelley (.600), Brayden Small (.500), Michael Miller (.438), Winston York (.412), Blake Starn (.364), Jake Dein (.357) and Max Salas (.357). Fittingly, each of the seven were members of last year’s squad that finished as a runner-up in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division VII playoffs.
Salas, Kelley and York have pitched the most innings thus far as the team has posted a collective ERA of 3.97 with an impressive 40:26 strikeout to walk ratio.
Hilmar (5-2)
Although it’s not as quick as a start as last year’s undefeated mark through nine games, the Yellowjackets have again been dominant during the non-conference slate.
Hilmar will enter Wednesday’s TVL opener at Ripon Christian with a stable of youngsters that have made an immediate impact at the varsity level. Leading the team in hitting is sophomore Dana Gentry with a .471 average and five hits, including a home run, while driving in four. The second-highest batting mark is junior Drake DeCosta at .462 with six hits, also with a homer, and a pair of RBI.
Junior Cohen Felber is one returner to the varsity roster that has maintained success at the dish, batting .417 with eight hits and four RBI.
On the bump, junior Caleb Contreras has the lowest ERA at 2.62 in eight innings over three games. Collectively, the Yellowjackets have a 5.69 ERA entering a tough TVL tilt, mainly due to a 24-5 loss to Wheatland to start the year and a 14-1 loss to Los Banos last Friday.
But the wins have been impressive, including a 5-3 win over Ceres, 5-2 win over Modesto at John Thurman Field, a 13-3 rout of Gustine, a 14-0 blanking of Mariposa and 15-5 victory against Turlock Christian.
Hughson (3-5)
The Huskies had a large contingent of last year’s section run-up squad graduate, including five starters, plus a top of the rotation arm in Bryce McDaniel retiring early to begin his college football career at Fresno State. Despite the loss in depth, the team has treaded water in what many consider to be one of the program’s toughest preseason slates in recent history.
Amid loss to section powerhouses Sutter (18-8), Manteca (5-0) and Woodland (4-1), the Huskies have earned strong wins over More of San Jose (12-0), El Capitan of Merced (2-1) and Buhach Colony of Atwater (16-6).
The Huskies will host Ripon on Wednesday to start a third defense of the TVL title.
Two senior standouts of the championship squads of the past two seasons are Isaac Lupercio and Benji Ocegueda, who lead the team in batting with marks of .389 and .385, respectively.
Ocegueda is shaping up to be one of Hughson’s top arms, having thrown a team-high 11 innings over three starts on his way to achieving a 2.55 ERA with 14 strikeouts.
Denair (0-6)
The Coyotes are coming off its first non-losing season since 2011, and despite a handful of returners, have not been able to find the win column.
With a new skipper at the helm in Craig Lundquist and stars like Kaden Prine and Lincoln Hart graduating, the Coyotes have lost by more than five runs in all but one of their six contests.
Denair opened the Southern League at home on Tuesday with a 21-2 loss to Mariposa. They’ll head to the foothills to cap off the two-game series Thursday before turning attention to Stone Ridge Christian next week.
