{"id":329856,"date":"2026-05-23T23:11:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329856\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:11:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:11:22","slug":"elk-grove-hs-baseball-wins-record-12th-cif-section-banner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329856\/","title":{"rendered":"Elk Grove HS baseball wins record 12th CIF section banner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The Elk Grove Thundering Herd’ Antonio Cuevas (9) points to the stands after the Thundering Herd defeated the Rodriguez Mustangs on Thursday, May 20, 2026, in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II baseball championship at Sacramento City College.<\/p>\n

JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS<\/p>\n

jvillegas@sacbee.com<\/p>\n

They may have to expand the trophy case a bit at Elk Grove High School, particularly for the baseball accolades.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night at Sacramento City College, the storied Thundering Herd added to the collection of hardware, defeating Rodriguez of Fairfield, 5-4, to win the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship.<\/p>\n

Players dog-piled on the Union Stadium infield, though some of the coaches were pretty stoic about it, including head coach Joe Bellotti. Not that the coach tied to the program for 20 years, including since 2019 as the head chief, didn\u2019t appreciate every bit of the fun.<\/p>\n

Elk Grove thundered into the playoffs as The Sacramento Bee\u2019s top-ranked team, winners of the Delta League that includes Division I finalist and defending champion Franklin and top-seeded St. Mary\u2019s of Stockton, a team the Thundering Herd defeated earlier this season.<\/p>\n

Bellotti was on the coaching staff for several section championship teams while assisting Jeff Carlson, and now he has his own crown that he says is shared by the staff. Carlson won a Sacramento regional-record eight section banners, and Elk Grove now has a section-record best 12 section baseball crowns. The first such crown came in 1981 when Mike Furtado was coach, then Gary Dreher won one in 1991, then Rusty McLain claimed one at his alma mater in 1997, of which Carlson was an assistant, then Carlson\u2019s remarkable eight banners \u2014 and now, this one.<\/p>\n

Bellotti said he takes none of the winning for granted, not in a region where baseball has been a thing for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, we had a great game against Granite Bay here in the finals, and we lost, and you never know how many opportunities you get,\u201d Bellotti said. \u201cWe felt pretty good about this group. Seven or our players were on that team two years ago. It\u2019s not easy to win these.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Elk Elk Grove Thundering Herd coach Joe Bellotti watches from the dugout against the Rodriguez Mustangs on Thursday in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II baseball championship at Sacramento City College. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Fourth-year varsity starting infielder and Cal-bound senior star Chase Groves had two hits and drove in three runs, and Jayden Hernandez had a hit and RBI. Hernandez is the son of former Thundering Herd great David Hernandez, who played Major League Baseball, one of 16 Elk Grove alums to reach the big leagues.<\/p>\n

Leadoff hitter Tristen Bartlett had three hits and scored three runs for Elk Grove, and he ended the game on the mound in relief of starter Anthony Bascherini, who struck out two and allowed two hits; and Brady Ramirez, who allowed two earned runs and struck out one. Elk Grove took a 5-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning after Groves smacked a two-run double.<\/p>\n

\"The The Elk Grove Thundering Herd’s Tristen Bartlett slides past the Rodriguez Mustangs\u2019 Nateo Victorio on Thursday in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II baseball championship at Sacramento City College. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

The Thundering Herd moved to 27-6 on the season and will play in a CIF Northern California contest. Groves said a lot of Elk Grove players grew up playing baseball, and their dreams included championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means everything to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 10:23 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Davidson<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Joe Davidson has covered sports for The Sacramento Bee since 1989: preps, colleges, Kings and features. He was in early 2024 named the National Sports Media Association Sports Writer of the Year for California and he was in the fall of 2024 inducted into the California High School Football Hall of Fame. He is a 14-time award winner from the California Prep Sports Writer Association. In 2021, he was honored with the CIF Distinguished Service award. He is a member of the California Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Davidson participated in football and track in Oregon.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Elk Grove Thundering Herd’ Antonio Cuevas (9) points to the stands after the Thundering Herd defeated the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-329856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}