ELAC Baseball is Playoff Bound
story by Stephen Morales (@grecomeco23 on X)
pictures by Mario Villegas (@marvilljr on X)
Two springs ago, the East Los Angeles College Huskies Baseball team was the talk of the 3C2A playoffs after they won the opening round series against the top seeded Palomar Comets. It was the first time the last team that made the playoffs defeated the top ranked team.
Now in 2025, the Huskies will have a chance to write a very similar story.
After a season that saw the Huskies play another gauntlet of a schedule, Head Coach Alec Adame and his Huskies were rewarded Sunday with a berth in the 3C2A Baseball SoCal Regionals, the second berth for the Huskies since Coach Adame became head coach.
Coach Adame was quick to point out what this news meant to the program.
"Making the playoffs this year feels really special because we missed the playoffs in 2024 by one game. Accomplishing what we did in 2023, my first year as the head coach, set the tone for our program! I feel we have really underachieved this year as a team. We are better than a 23 seed, and everyone knows it. So still having a shot at our ultimate goal of winning a state title feels amazing!"
The 23rd seeded Huskies will play the opening round best of three series at the 2nd seeded Cypress Chargers. Game 1 will be this Friday May 2nd. Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) would be Saturday May 3rd. All games will be at Cypress. Game 1 will be Friday at 2pm. Game 2 will be Saturday at 11am. The 3rd game (if necessary) will start at 2pm Saturday or about 30 minutes after the conclusion of Game 2.
The two teams met once before this year at the Allan Hancock Spring Classic, a back-and-forth thriller won by Cypress 12-11.
Cypress comes into the series with a 31-9 record. The Huskies enter with a 19-20 record along with 12-12 in conference but have come on strong in the last month winning nine of their last fourteen games.
To show how good the South Coast Conference was this year, six teams qualified for the SoCal playoffs. ELAC joins fellow conference members Mt. Sac, Cerritos, El Camino, Long Beach, and Pasadena City in this years playoffs. This is a rare stat, a fact not lost on Coach Adame.
". Our conference is really growing! It's getting better every year! I believe most of us schedule higher RPI teams out of conference, and that really helps!" he added.
Once the bracket was released, Coach Adame and his staff were excited to let the team know and began to scout their opponent.
"Cypress is one of the best teams in the state! I really respect Anthony's program, and love what they do there! We faced them up in the AHC Spring Classic earlier this year, and we know they can hit & pitch very well! It will be a good series!"
As always as it is in baseball, the name of the game is pitching. The Huskies have a two headed monster atop their rotation. Ricardo "Kiki" Villegas has pitched 53.2 innings for a 4.70 ERA and has struck out 46 while Hector Valdez has an 8-2 record in 78.2 innings pitched with 61 strikeouts and a 2.86 ERA.
In addition, look for Justin Cardenas, Tony Ponce, Juan Contreas and Jake Ramos to get some big outs for the Huskies in this series.
Adame spoke of his staff. "This year we have had so much adversity with our pitching staff. With what we have been through, I believe our staff has gotten tougher and understands what it means to buy into our team concept! We are growing at a good time!"
On offense the Huskies have had contributions throughout the order. Leadoff Hitter Evan Chavez has set the table all year with a .370 average, 61 hits, 3 homers and 36 RBI. Manny Ramirez Jr is hitting .273 with nine home runs and 49 RBIs. Rainer Gahagan leads the team with a .374 average along with forty hits, nineteen RBIs and two homers. Matais Nolasco is hitting .326 with four home runs, 44 hits and 29 RBIs. In addition to those numbers, Felipe De Alba, Matthew Vargas, Jesse Rojas, and Mahki Clark have all been on hot streaks these past weeks to help carry the offense.
Husky Athletic Director Bobby Godinez is looking forward to another playoff run. "I'm really proud to see Coach Adame, the staff, and their team fight to the finish. Their resilience has gotten them the playoff berth and I'm really excited to see them continue to compete." Godinez said.
We will have more information about game times, streaming and more as the week goes on.
It may be a tall order but as we saw two years ago, and the old saying goes "that's why you play the game."
Good Luck and Go Huskies!!
