The Fullerton baseball team dropped two tough games to close the season against Santa Ana. The Hornets dug another hole and were unable to erase a 10-run deficit to the Dons in an 11-7 defeat on Saturday at Don Sneddon Field. In the best of a three-game series, Fullerton never got the lead.
Santa Ana’s starting pitching stifled the Hornets’ offense once again through five innings. Fullerton got to the Dons pitcher Andrew Phillips in the sixth inning. Down 10-0, the Hornets scored their first run of the game on third baseman Luke Viola’s bases-loaded RBI single, after two walks and a single in between.
Santa Ana Head Coach Tom Nilles immediately went to the bullpen and brought in reliever JP Sova. Sova walked left fielder Sean Green to bring home Vinny Hudson. The biggest hit of the inning came off the bat of second baseman Coen Goeas. After leaving the bases stranded in game one, he redeemed himself. Goeas ripped a bases-clearing triple down the left field line.
“I was trying to stay on the fastball, stay aggressive. I knew he was gonna pound the zone. He had nothing to beat me in; I was hunting something to hit,” said Goeas.
That woke up not only the Hornet dugout, but the crowd as well. Some of the Fullerton fans started to clap along with the players before each pitch was thrown. Nilles put his left hand up against his chin, while Head Coach Chad Baum applauded his players during their at-bats.
First Baseman Carlos Barrios drove in Goeas with an RBI single to trim the deficit to 10-6. The Hornet dugout increased the volume to another level, as the tension was rising.
“We put together good at-bats that inning. We trusted ourselves, trusted our plan, trusted Baumer, and rode with it,” said Goeas.
Nilles went to reliever Johnny Morales, who killed the rally with a strikeout of designated player Niko Mendez and a pop-up from Kai Hopfel to catcher Carlos Morales.
The Hornets chipped away at Santa Ana’s lead in the seventh inning. Right fielder Jake Starr singled, and center fielder Vinny Hudson roped an RBI double. That made it 10–7, Santa Ana. That would be as close as they get.
In the ninth inning, Santa Ana would add an insurance run on Ben Melendrez’s solo blast to make it 11-7. Morales closed it out in the bottom half, going one, two, three. He retired nine of the last ten batters he faced to record his first save of the season.
Fullerton ends their season at the 3C2A SoCal Regional Finals for the second time in four years, falling to Santa Ana in both matchups.
“[Santa Ana] is the number two team for a reason. They’re very experienced, and we struggled with that. It comes down to having a little older pitching staff, and they made a couple of better pitches than we did today. We made a good run at it, and very proud of my guys,” said Baum.
Baum looks to build on this postseason run heading into the 2027 campaign.
“Believing in our culture and moving the program forward is very important to us; those players were pretty instrumental in the last three years. For the last four years, we’ve been in at least the second round of the playoffs. A lot of fun practices and a lot of fun days,” said Baum.
