Sierra men claim CCCAA State Championship

The Sierra College men's swim team has reached the mountain top once again. After a runner-up finish in the 2018 California Community College Athletic Association State Championships, the Wolverines outlasted Diablo Valley College 528-500 in the final tallies to bring home its first state crown since 2016. Sophomore Daniel Ilin led the way winning all three of his distance events. Ilin took the 200 (1 minute, 37.94 seconds), 500- and 1,650-yard (15:55.38) freestyles for a huge 60 points for Sierra's cause. Noah Scholar won the 100 breaststroke in 56.52 seconds and was the runner-up in the 200. Eric Thias took the 200 backstroke in 1:49.85 and was the runner-up in the 200 Individual Medley. Sierra received Top-3 finishes from Gary Woo in the 100 back and Joseph Dutra in the 200 breast as well as Top-5 marks from Jaysen Westlake in the 200 breast and Carson Van Farowe in the 100 back. The Sierra women placed third overall behind champion Orange Coast College and runner-up San Diego Mesa. Rory Nuuhiwa placed second in the 400 IM (4:42.52) and third in the 200 butterfly (2:13.85). Danielle Brown was second in the 200 breast (2:20.49) and third in the 100 breast (1:04.34). Natalie Nobili was the runner-up in the 200 butterfly (2:13.03) and Jacquelyn Laskey finished fourth in both the 200 butterfly (2:14.21) and 1,650 freestyle (18:08.61). Sierra's men and women had a top overall score of 846, beating out Diablo Valley's 813. BASEBALL The Wolverines were never out of any of the three games against San Mateo in the first round of the CCCAA Regional Playoffs last weekend. The Bulldogs just resilient enough to advance to the Super Regionals with a 2-1 series win. Down 4-0 Friday, Sierra threatened with three runs in the ninth inning as Christopher Cook had an RBI double and Kenny LeBeau plated two with a single. San Mateo escaped the jam to create a must-win scenario for the Wolverines Saturday. Matt Lopez hit a walk-off, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth in Game 2 Saturday afternoon to uphold a solid combined mound effort from Elijah Garcia, Grant Woodside and Takashi Umino and set up a wild winner-take-all later in the day. Sierra was down 7-2 heading into the ninth, but a rally for the ages ignited the Wolverines' dugout. LeBeau and Zach Bushling had RBI singles and Keith Hale hit a sacrifice fly to make it 7-5. With two on and one out, it was Lopez again who crushed a three-run shot to give Sierra an 8-7 lead. Big 8 Conference Co-MVP Charles Middleton followed in the next at-bat with a solo shot, and Brandon Motheral doubled and scored on LeBeau's second run-scoring single of the inning. Despite a 10-7 lead heading into the bottom half of the inning, Sierra could not stave off the hungry Bulldogs, who got four back in the bottom half to pull of an epic walk-off series-clincher, 11-10. Sierra ends its season at 30-12 and as the No. 4 team in Northern California. SOFTBALL Bella Bottini put the fifth-seeded Wolverines on her back over the weekend to help advance Sierra to the CCCAA Super Regionals. The Lincoln High product threw a combined 12 scoreless innings through the two games against Fresno City and had the game-tying RBI in the eighth inning of the series-clinching Game 2. A bases-loaded walk to Lexi DeLozier allowed the Wolverines to walk-off into the next round, where Sierra (33-9) will take on Sacramento City (31-8) May 10–11. Virgie Robello went 3-for-3 with a double and three RBIs in Game 1 vs. Fresno. Emily Smith was 2-for-2 in each of the two games.