COD Baseball will host #9 Long Beach Friday in SoCal Regionals

NOTE: Many scammers are out there, claiming to sell tickets to playoff baseball games or offer a video of playoff baseball games. Only trust links from the CODAthletics.com website.

COD Baseball has claimed the #8 seed and will host in the opening round of the SoCal Regional playoffs after winning their first Conference Title in 51 years.

You can find the complete CCCAA SoCal Regionals bracket here: https://www.cccaasports.org/sports/bsb/2021-22/Files/BB_SoCal_1.pdf

State Playoffs Ticket Prices are as follows: General Admission is $12. Faculty, Staff, Children Under 12, Adults 60+ & Students w/ Valid A.S. card are $8. There are no guest passes allowed.

The best-of-3 series will take place on the campus of College of the Desert at Ted Hamilton Field. Friday first pitch of game 1 will be at 2 p.m., Saturday first pitch of game 2 will be at 11 a.m. where the game will be played at COD, but the Roadrunners will be the "road" team and if necessary, game 3 will be on Saturday at 2 p.m. The series will also coincide with the first major heatwave of 2022, with high temperatures expected to be 102 on Friday and 97 on Saturday.

You may purchase your tickets online by going to: https://www.codathletics.com/sports/2022tickets QR code will be available at the gate, no cash transactions will be available.

Under the tutelage of second-year head coach Sam DiMatteo, the #8 seeded Roadrunners Baseball team ended the 2021 season claiming their 7th Conference championship and the first Inland Empire Athletic Conference (IEAC) Coach of the Year award for a Desert head coach.

DiMatteo was awarded as Coach of the Year finishing the regular season, with a 26-14 overall record and an 18-6 conference record, wrapping up the regular season winning 12 of their final 14 games. They were rewarded with the 8 seed in the Southern California Regional Playoffs along with a Conference pitching MVP (Kenny Keller), 2 Gold Glove selections (Spencer Dickinson & William Owens), 3 First Team selections (Spencer Dickinson, William Owens & Michael-Alan Stanford) and 5 Second Team selections (Dillon Baker, Brian Parry, Graham Gonzales, Martin Sanchez & Kenneth Schechter).

Desert will face off with a Long Beach City Vikings team that finished the regular season with a record of 28-12, the Vikings ended the 2021 season as co-Champions of the South Coast Conference (SCC) with Mt. San Antonio College, both teams ending the season with an SCC record of 19-5. The Vikings started the season 5-5 and have won 18 of their last 20 games.

Long Beach City finished the 2019 season as co-Champs of the SCC-South with a record of 17-5, with an overall record of 28-17. The Vikings were most recently in the playoffs in the 2019 season entering the Southern California Regional's as the 12th seed, Long Beach City upset the #5 seeded Ventura Pirates, 2 games to 1 (3-1, 0-5, 12-3) then were swept in the Super Regional by eventual State Champions, the top seeded Orange Coast Pirates, 2 game to 0 (9‐6, 2‐0). The Vikings are coached by Casey Crook in his 29th season.

Desert and Long Beach City last played one another in a 3-game home-at-home series on March 19 and 20, 2008. A double header was played in Palm Desert on the 19th, the Vikings swept the 3-game series (2-1, 7-4, 7-3).

The winner of Friday and Saturday's best-of-three game first-round contest will advance to face the Super Regionals on May 13-15. The CCCAA Baseball State Championship will take place on May 28-30 at Folsom Lake College in Folsom.

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For additional information, please contact the COD Sports Information Office at 760.423.6641.

Information, Photos & Story provided by COD Sports Information.