Scott Stover will see eight familiar faces on Friday when his Solano Community College baseball team travels to Folsom Lake for the first round of the Northern California regional playoffs. Folsom Lake has eight players from Solano County high schools and one of them, Austin Menesini, played at Solano in 2022.
Menesini is one of five former Vacaville High players at Folsom Lake. The others are his brother JJ, Konner McClellin, Bennie Dyer and Kyle Bender. They are joined by two Will C. Wood graduates, Kobe Rolling and Jarren Ford, and Daryl Dilworth from Vanden. Solano has 13 players from eight high schools in the county.
Recruiting is always a challenge for Stover because local players want to get away from home and believe other junior colleges have better baseball programs to offer. The best-of-three playoff series at Folsom Lake could very well determine whether Stover’s luck in attracting local talent will improve in years to come.
Stover is doing fine without those eight players this season. Solano finished second in the Bay Valley Conference at 16-5 and 26-13 in the regular season. Folsom Lake shared first place in the Big 8 Conference at 17-7 and is 26-14 overall.
Solano has not faced a Big 8 team this season. Folsom Lake split two games against Yuba, which finished fifth in the BVC at 8-13. Yuba avoided a three-game sweep against Solano by rallying for four runs in the ninth inning for an 8-7 victory on April 5. The last two runs scored on an error with two outs.
A three-game sweep of Laney got Solano back on track in time to face Marin in a showdown for second place in th BVC. The Mariners won two of three, but Solano came out of the series with optimism because Marin had to face Los Medanos in the final week of the regular season. The BVC-leading Mustangs swept the series to leave Solano in a need of a sweep against Napa Valley to finish second.
Napa Valley had an opportunity to play spoiler last Tuesday by overcoming a 6-0 deficit to take a 7-6 lead into the ninth inning at Solano. Miles Meadow tied it for Solano with a single to drive in Connor Ross, who then walked off Solano’s 10-7 victory by belting a three-run homer with two outs in the 10th.
An extra inning allowed Ross to avoid just his eighth hitless game of the season. The sophomore from Napa High is ranked third in the state with a .434 batting average and tied for seventh in RBI with 56. Folsom Lake’s Max Debiec is second in batting average at .469 and third in RBI with 64. The sophomore from O’Dea High in Seattle has hit 11 of Folsom Lake’s 38 homers. Ross leads Solano with seven.
Ross homered and had three RBI in each of the three games against Napa Valley. Solano rolled to the sweep with 19-0 and 21-2 routs in the last two games. Joseph Guttmann borrowed the spotlight from Ross in the third game last Friday by going 5-for-5 with two homers and a school-record 12 RBI.
Guttmann, a sophomore from St. Patrick-St. Vincent High in Vallejo, had seven RBI in the 19-0 win last Thursday to give him nearly as many RBI in two games (19) than he had in the first 36 (21). Guttmann is second to Ross in RBI on the team.
Marcos Santos came within one out of a no-hitter last Thursday. The sophomore from Bethel High in Vallejo is 7-2 to lead the team in victories. Freshman Peyton Czekalewski from Vintage High in Napa is 6-2 with a 2.13 ERA. Ryne Richard, a freshman from Armijo, started the series finale and earned his first victory of the season by allowing two runs in five innings.