The magical season isn’t over yet. Castaic High School baseball enters the CIF SoCal Regional tournament as the No. 1 seed in Division 5 and will be home for the remainder of the season.
The Coyotes (24-7-1) notched the top seed and home field advantage after their CIF Southern Section title run as a wild-card team.
Castaic will open up regionals on Tuesday with the Sun Valley Magnet Pioneers (17-6). The Pioneers enter regionals as Division 3 City Section runners-up.
Sun Valley has waves of talent including two freshman standouts in Diego Loredo and Thomas Noguera. The freshman duo will rival Castaic’s Kyler Freude and Tyler Hawn, as both pairs shine at the plate and on the mound.
The Coyotes pitchers will also need to zero in on seniors Albert Torres Dionisio and Diego Guitierrez, who have each hit well in the postseason.
Castaic has all the makings of ending its season on top. Freude and Hawn have both pitched lights-out but head coach Darrell Davis has plenty of options with Diego Spross, James Lafferty and Brayden Lester in the bullpen.
Joji Sakata leads the talented hitting group with Coyotes like Matthew Airhart, Aaron Gonzalez, David Cailatto and Brody Lusk having big bats throughout the order. The group was critical in Castaic winning its CIF playoff games by an average run differential of seven runs.
The Coyotes enter the contest on a six-game winning streak but have only lost to one non-league opponent since mid-February.
The school will have to wait until next year to hang a Foothill League championship banner in any sport but will suffice with a CIF and potential SoCal Regional champ banner in the rafters.
Castaic hosts Sun Valley Magnet on Tuesday at 4 p.m. for the Division 5 SoCal Regional opener.