Staff writer Joe Curley will begin live game coverage from Blair Field in Long Beach at 1 p.m.
10 a.m. Fillmore baseball’s unlikely postseason run reaches Long Beach
After finishing fourth in the Citrus Coast League, the Fillmore High School baseball team took a rare, winding road to today’s CIF-Southern Section Division 7 final at Blair Field in Long Beach.
The Flashes had to win not one, but two wild-card rounds — beating Montrose-St. Monica 6-0 and Covina-Gladstone 5-2 — to join the rest of the 32-team field in the first round.
Yet Fillmore passed four more tests, including Tuesday’s semifinal against Cantwell-Sacred Heart, to reach the program’s eighth sectional final.
Fillmore’s postseason run:
- Wild card: Fillmore 6, St. Monica 0
- Wild card: Fillmore 5, Gladstone 2
- First round: Fillmore 10, St. Genevieve 2 (eight innings)
- Second round: Fillmore 10, Animo Leadership 0
- Quarterfinal: Fillmore 7, Artesia 1
- Semifinal: Fillmore 4, Cantwell-Sacred Heart 1
The Flashes have been boosted by pitching ace Jathan Magana, who is 10-4 with a 1.55 ERA, and the comeback story of three-sport athlete Anthony Chessani. The football star has missed the past three seasons — his junior baseball season, senior football season and senior basketball season — after suffering a devastating knee injury on the basketball court last year against Santa Paula.
Chessani delivered two RBI singles in the 4-1 win over Sacred Heart Tuesday.
Fillmore faces a formidable opponent in the final, which begins at 1 p.m. Undefeated top-seeded Pomona-Ganesha is 17-0 and has outscored opponents 246-14, including postseason wins of 17-0 and 20-0.
Joe Curley is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at [email protected]. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.