ANAHEIM \u2014 The Maranatha baseball team came into the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs with momentum and confidence after capturing its seventh consecutive Olympic League title.<\/p>\n
However, the Minutemen\u2019s season came to an abrupt end in their first round after Anaheim Canyon pulled out a 10-6 victory Friday.<\/p>\n
Maranatha\u2019s Josh Proctor, Eric Zdunek, and Lukus Perez all finished 2 for 4 at the plate, but it wasn\u2019t enough as the Minutemen\u2019s offense was outpaced on the road.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the big surprise Friday was that Maranatha coach Matt Shupper didn\u2019t start arguably the San Gabriel Valley\u2019s top pitcher, Zach Strickland, a UCLA commit with a 6-0 record and a 0.58 ERA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hoping to get by,\u201d Shupper said, explaining his reasons for not starting his ace. \u201cThis team (Canyon) had a bunch of lefties. We were gonna throw Carson Kelly and bullpen this game. Our pitching staff has been phenomenal all season with an ERA that is sub-two. So, we were hoping to have Zach close out this game if we grabbed the lead and start him in game two if that\u2019s what it came down to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canyon (19-10) advances to Tuesday\u2019s second to face Servite, a 1-0 winner over Riverside Poly.<\/p>\n
The Comanches seemed to stun the Minutemen by scoring four runs in the first inning off Kelly.<\/p>\n
Kelly lasted one inning as Shupper quickly made the move to the bullpen. Maranatha brought in Bradley Loiacono, the first of four pitchers to appear out of the bullpen for the Minutemen.<\/p>\n
Maranatha\u2019s offense provided a bit of run support, pushing across a run in the second inning.<\/p>\n
Zdunek picked up two RBIs with a one-out single in the third inning.<\/p>\n
Maranatha trailed 4-3 heading to the fourth inning.<\/p>\n
Just as it seemed like the Minutemen could swing the game in their favor, their offense went ice cold with six consecutive outs over the fifth and sixth innings.<\/p>\n
Canyon\u2019s offense came alive again late, pushing three runs across in the bottom of the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
Camden Goetz capped the Comanches\u2019 rally with a two-run home run. He finished 3 for 3 with three RBIs, a double and a home run.<\/p>\n
Maranatha picked up three consecutive hits to begin the seventh inning. After Zdunek brought in a run with a sacrifice fly, Canyon got back-to-back outs to end the game.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u201cI\u2019m proud of my team for the way they battled,\u201d Shupper said. \u201cOur guys are fighters. My credit goes to Canyon, they really swung the bat well at their home field. And our guys, the field played big and some of the balls didn\u2019t go over their heads like we thought. But I\u2019m really proud of this team, they worked hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maranatha finished the season 18-10-1.<\/p>\n
Shupper said he\u2019s looking forward to the future of the program and likes the direction it\u2019s headed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very young, but talented,\u201d Shupper said. \u201cMaranatha baseball is not going away. We\u2019re going to be really talented and we\u2019ve got some guys who can really play this game coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: May 16, 2025 at 7:27 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM \u2014 The Maranatha baseball team came into the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs with momentum and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,10156,3329,3263,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-33905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-high-school-all-sports","10":"tag-high-school-baseball","11":"tag-high-school-sports","12":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","13":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-mlb-playoffs","16":"tag-mlb-postseason","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114523377781317348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}