The Bear Cubs are in good position to potentially win a fourth state title, but with a little less than a month until the postseason, the real work is just beginning.
Damon Neidlinger has delivered hundreds of postgame speeches like the one he gave Thursday afternoon.
A dozen or so F-bombs, some animated pointing and waving, his voice rising as he talked about what his Santa Rosa Junior College baseball team could have done better.
A casual observer might think this speech came after a losing effort, but no — this was a 5-0 win, the team’s ninth victory in a row and a combined three-hit shutout by a pair of pitchers.
That’s just the nature of the fiery longtime head coach of the Bear Cubs.
Neidlinger has always taken a no-nonsense approach, always challenged and asked more of his teams. But this spring, it’s probably been a bit more difficult to find things to correct.
Perfection is nearly impossible in anything, especially baseball, but SRJC has been about as perfect this season as a team can be.
Thursday’s win over Diablo Valley College on the Bear Cubs’ home turf moved their record to 16-1 in the Big 8 conference and an astonishing 29-1 on the year — what Neidlinger believes is probably the best 30-game start to a season in program history.
SRJC has been ranked No. 1 in the statewide California Community College Athletic Association for the last month and received 17 of 18 first-place votes in the most recent state poll last week. Even more impressive, Perfect Game, a national baseball outlet, has the Bear Cubs ranked No. 10 in the entire country.
Yes, even Neidlinger would admit that their start has been historic and his team is in good position to potentially win their fourth state title in program history, but with a little less than a month until the postseason begins, the real work is just beginning.
On Thursday afternoon, Neidlinger’s postgame diatribe focused on the Bear Cubs’ situational at-bats, which the team would admit weren’t the best. They left 10 runners on base, including six in scoring position, in the 5-0 win.
“The score should have been 7-0,” said Neidlinger, who’s in his 21st season leading the program.
But the main point he was trying to convey is that Thursday’s effort wouldn’t cut it come playoff time, when the stakes are raised and a few subpar performances could mean the end of the road. It’s the little things that will determine whether or not SRJC’s aspirations for a state title will be realized at the end of May.
The tough-love approach has long been Neidlinger’s hallmark — and this season’s team has taken to it as well as any in his tenure.
It all started back at the beginning of the semester in January. The Bear Cubs had played well in their fall exhibitions but arrived for their first practice after winter break a bit too relaxed. When Neidlinger was ready to start practice, his team was still setting up the field.
So it was time for a workout.
“We pretty much ran the whole practice,” said sophomore pitcher Brice Cox, a Casa Grande grad who struck out nine with one walk in five innings Thursday. “Since that day, it kind of flipped the switch for what we have right now.”
JT Summers, a freshman from Casa Grande who’s been one of the Bear Cubs’ top hitters this season, called the team’s 20-0 start “surreal.” They rallied to some wins and had a few victories he felt they probably shouldn’t have won.
“There was always something here,” Summers said. “We saw in the fall that we were hitting well, we were pitching well, we have all the depth in the world, but from the start nothing has been easy. It’s always been that we got to fight our butts off and work hard. Nothing is easy. We can go 30-0 and it wouldn’t matter; we’d still be going hard in practice, never have an easy day.
“It’s always going to be win one and move onto the next right away.”
At the 30-game mark, SRJC has the best fielding percentage (.982) and second-best earned run average in the state (2.42). Cox and sophomore Jordan Giacomini, another Casa Grande product and University of Nevada-Reno commit, are tied for third in the state in wins with seven.
Sophomore pitcher Luke Schat, a Ukiah High School grad and another University of Nevada-Reno commit, has the second-best individual ERA in the state (0.49) and sophomore Raul Valdivia, a Cardinal Newman grad, is No. 1 in the state with eight saves.
Valdivia struck out seven with just two hits and a walk allowed over the final four innings of Thursday’s win.
SRJC’s staff has also allowed a state-low 82 runs, nearly 40 fewer than the next team.
And Summers, in his first JC season, is their offensive leader with team highs in hits (45), doubles (14), home runs (5), RBIs (46), batting (.375), on-base percentage (.469) and slugging (.650). He added to those totals Thursday, going 2-for-5 with a two-run double.
Cox, who’s in his third year in the program, said he sees something special with this group.
“We’re 35 guys who all really want to win,” he said. “Everyone does their part as a team. … Everyone has a job and everyone has embraced it. We’ve been saying all year, ‘Thirty-five on one, 35 of us vs. the pitcher,’ and go find a way to win.”
Neidlinger echoed that sentiment. He’s seen this type of camaraderie and chemistry before, in his state championship teams in 2005 and 2016.
“I know it’s kind of cliché in sports, but these guys like each other, they pull for each other,” he said. “It’s something that we talked about in January that it needed to be authentic, it needed to become real, and it has.”
But both Cox and Neidlinger recognize that even if they win all of their remaining eight games this season, everything resets in the playoffs. Cox remembers the disappointment of their upset losses in the CCCAA playoffs the last two years and Neidlinger calls back on his 2005 state championship team that was ranked No. 17 in the CCCAA before catching fire in the postseason. Anything can happen when the stakes are raised.
But so far, Neidlinger said, none of their success has gone to their heads.
“They haven’t shown up on days where my message gets a little bit clean, straight and tough, and sometimes a little bit nasty, and gone ‘Hey, coach don’t you know we’re 20-whatever and 1?’” he said. “They’ve done none of that.”
It’s a good sign for the Bear Cubs as they enter the home stretch of the regular season. The CCCAA playoffs are set to begin May 2.
On Friday, the Bear Cubs finished off the sweep of DVC with an 8-0 win to improve to 30-1. Schat, Lucas Hermes and Caleb Okada combined for another three-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts.
Next week, they have a two-game series at Porterville before a three-game series against Sacramento City starting April 15, their penultimate series of Big 8 play.
You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @JustGusPD.
