The San Dimas Saints baseball team competed in the Ryan Lemon tournament in Irvine, California, from April 1-3. This is a big deal for the team because this is one of the few tournaments the Saints get to play in all season. Different schools from all across the United States traveled here to play in this tournament. The Saints ended the tournament going 3-1, losing in the championship game to Woodbridge High School 8-4. The team was very devastated when they lost the championship,p but they had a great tournament nonetheless.
The Saints had a 3-game pool play stretch where they would play teams all across the country, and the team with the 2 best records would play in the championship game. San Dimas started their tournament with a game against Canyon High School and ended up taking the win 4-1 with Sophomore James Rocha on the mound taking the Win and Senior Jason Almeda getting 2 hits with an RBI for the Saints, and started 1-0 in the tournament. The Saints would play game 2 against University High School, and Sophomore Manuel Tinajero on the mound, taking the wi,n and Jason Almeda grabbing 4 hits and an RBI for the Saints to go to 9-3 to keep the winning streak going and undefeated in the tournament with a 2-0 record. San Dimas looked to keep the undefeated tournament streak alive with a game against Woods Cross High School, and they did with a 2-0 win, with Dean Brosterhouse taking the win with 10 strikeouts and a complete game to take first place out 19 teams to qualify for the championship game against Woodbridge High School.
Not one person expected San Dimas to be in the Championship game, and they shocked everyone by going 3-0. Woodbridge High School had high expectations while being one of the top schools in California. It started with Senior Jayden Claros on the Mound and pitched 2 innings while giving up no runs and 1 hit allowed. Senior Joseph Layva came in relief and gave up 7 runs, but 2 earned runs, which broke it open for Woodbridge. The Saints would start a rally in the 6th inning, only scoring 4, but it wasn’t enough in the end as San Dimas would lose the championship 8-4. The Saints had a great tournament, but couldn’t come on top in the end, but they should be happy with themselves for how good they did and bringing their season hopes up as they look to qualify for the CIF playoffs and make a run for the title.