FREDDY GONZALEZ | Valley Morning Star
SANTA ROSA — Coming into the 2018 baseball season, the Santa Rosa Warriors had tunnel vision of sorts.
After last year’s loss to Lyford in the final game of the regular season crushed their hopes of hoisting the district trophy, the ballclub entered this season with only one goal in mind: Win the District 32-3A title.
Fast-forward two months and the results of a determined group are evident; an almost unblemished league record (8-1) and the program’s first outright district championship in school history.
“Since freshman year we’ve been grinding and trying to win our district championship,” said Eluterio Perez. “Last year we failed, but we knew we were heading into our senior year, and we were going to have one more try so we had to put in the work and I’m glad we did it because it’s a good feeling.”
However, the title run didn’t come without its challenges.
“Starting the season nobody really communicated or played as a team and that was our problem,” said Abraham Medina. “But once we started to communicate with each other in the preseason, we carried that into district and it worked out well.”
“I think it’s a pretty amazing feeling that we won the championship because we’ve been fighting for it the last four years and I never expected to win.”
The last time the Warriors won the district title was in 2011 when Santa Rosa was co-champions with Falfurrias. However, this year the distinctiveness of clinching the title outright made the accomplishment that much more special.
“This title means a lot to us because coming into the season we had our mind on winning the district title and we had our eyes on the prize,” said Santa Rosa head coach Steven Mendoza. “But for us to actually win it outright is a huge blessing to us. The kids come to the ballpark and put in the work because they are grinders and it showed this year.
“We lost a lot of talent last year and we weren’t sure how things were going to play out, but the kids had the right mindset and played a lot more team ball. We had our ups and downs, but the coaching staff and I noticed that we were really solid defensively and that’s what kept us afloat this season.”
The Warriors now move on to the bi-district round of the playoffs where they will face Kingsville Santa Gertrudis in a best-of-3 series. Game 1 is at 7 p.m. Thursday at Sinton High School, Game 2 is at 11 a.m. at Santa Rosa and Game 3, if one is necessary, is 30 minutes after Game 2.