<\/p>\nAdd Preferred Source<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
The team seriously considered not playing that week, but \u201cconsidering how important baseball was to Art and Armen, we decided to forge forward,\u201d said Adam Vartaressian.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Baseball Top 10<\/p>\n
Rank<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
W-L<\/p>\n
Previous<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
Valley Christian\u00a0<\/p>\n
23-9<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
De La Salle<\/p>\n
23-5<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Francis<\/p>\n
25-5<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
Los Gatos<\/p>\n
26-5<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
5.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granada\u00a0<\/p>\n
20-10<\/p>\n
HM<\/p>\n
6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clayton Valley Charter<\/p>\n
24-5<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Ignatius<\/p>\n
17-9<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
8.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Serra<\/p>\n
17-10<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
9.<\/p>\n
Novato<\/p>\n
21-7<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
10.<\/p>\n
Redwood<\/p>\n
24-5-1<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
Honorable mentions:\u00a0Bellarmine 20-8, Berkeley 21-5-1, College Park 19-6, Menlo School 22-11, Mitty 20-12\u00a0<\/p>\n
Softball Top 10\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Rank<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
W-L<\/p>\n
Previous<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
Mitty<\/p>\n
26-4<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
St. Francis<\/p>\n
26-5<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alameda<\/p>\n
24-6<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
San Ramon Valley<\/p>\n
23-7<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
5.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Livermore<\/p>\n
25-4<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Los Gatos<\/p>\n
24-3<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Valley Christian<\/p>\n
20-8<\/p>\n
7<\/p>\n
8.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Castro Valley<\/p>\n
21-6<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
9.<\/p>\n
College Park<\/p>\n
20-8<\/p>\n
HM<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
American Canyon<\/p>\n
20-4<\/p>\n
HM<\/p>\n
Honorable mentions: Aragon 17-11, Hillsdale 19-10, Liberty 22-6, Marin Catholic 22-3-1, Salesian 21-3<\/p>\n
But forging forward, persevering, keeping one\u2019s commitment, is one thing. What happened with the Warriors was nothing Diatte or anyone involved in the storied program had ever seen. Especially on the mound.<\/p>\n
Valley Christian won 11 of its next 12 games, finishing a 23-9 season with a five-game flurry that featured five straight shutouts and 38 consecutive scoreless innings. In those 11 wins, they gave up a total of three runs for a 0.27 ERA with nine shutouts.<\/p>\n
This from a team that had graduated its top four starters from the previous season, four of the six seniors who earned Division 1 college scholarships: Brock Ketelsen and Quinten Marsh (Stanford), Rohan Kasanagottu (USC) and Kole Laubach (UC Santa Barbara).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes no sense,\u201d Varteressian said of the pitching dominance. \u201cOther than these guys wanted to prove they should have been pitching last year. That and they just really didn\u2019t want their season to end. They just kept wanting to extend their season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
In the case of Varteressian and Alegria, baseball and being around the boys was a great distraction to their grieving.<\/p>\n
Both their dads were fixtures around the program, particularly the retired Armen, who his son said missed all of two games played and coached at Saratoga High School and Mission JC in Santa Clara. He attended every Valley Christian game, so much so Diatte had a special stool made for him with the inscription \u201cPapa Vart.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his lap, often sat his 3-year-old granddaughter Mila Rose. A picture of the two in a game at Santa Clara University was blown up and given to Varteressian, who displayed it in the dugout every game since his father\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father grew up in Boston, went to MIT but didn\u2019t fall in love with baseball until I started playing,\u201d Vartaressian said. \u201cHe was the smartest guy I ever knew and he loved the game because he called it \u2018a thinking man\u2019s game.\u2019 He always told me what he thought. Even during this streak where we gave up no runs, he would have offered his advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Art Alegria wanted nothing more than his oldest child, Allen, who has younger siblings Andrew (13) and Amy (9) along with mom Alejandra, to be a ballplayer. In a GoFundMe post, Art was described as working\u00a0\u201c12 to 14 hours a day to make sure his family had everything they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Allen and Adam rarely talked about their fathers over the past couple months, Varteressian said. \u201cIt was just understood,\u201d the pitching coach said. \u201cI think it was just understood between all of us. How important it is just to be together. To show up. Not taking any moment or situation for granted. We truly pulled for one another to extend the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it lasted as long as it could. With a 12th CCS title, eking out a 3-2 first-round win over Willow Glen-San Jose. From there, led by the pitching trio of Gabe Felix, Rahul Patel and closer Alex Kim, they didn\u2019t give up a run from that point forward. Wins over\u00a0NorCal juggernauts Los Gatos (3-0), Soquel (6-0), Bullard-Fresno (4-0), De La Salle-Concord (3-0) and finally Elk Grove (12-0) punctuated the journey to the program\u2019s first\u00a0NorCal title.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn and I got choked up a couple times thinking about it all,\u201d Varteressian said. \u201cWe did talk once about how much fun Art and Arlen must be having watching from up above.\u201d<\/p>\n
And during the postgame celebration in Elk Grove, what did Varteressian say to Alegria? \u201cNothing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just squeezed a little longer. A little tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transfer city: The Metro\u2019s top two boys basketball teams in 2025-26, hit hard by graduation, each added a pair of four-star recruits via transfers. Northern California Open Division champion Salesian-Richmond added first-team All-Metro point guard NJ Gray, last season\u2019s Marin County Athletic League Player of the Year for Branson-Ross, who averaged 25 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals per game, while King\u2019s Academy-Sunnyvale 6-foot-5 guard Boss Mhoon announced on Instagram he\u2019s enrolled at Riordan. \u2026 Livermore All-Metro sophomore Amare Chandler is headed to basketball academy AZ Compass out of Chandler (Ariz.); Folsom\u2019s leading returning scorer Parks Weaver, a 6-3 guard, has enrolled at De La Salle-Concord;\u00a0Clayton Valley Charter-Concord guard Zion Grissom has transferred to Dougherty Valley-San Ramon, and Salesian also landed College Park-Pleasant Hill leading scorer Miles Cooper.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Coaching carousel: Sacred Heart Cathedral announced the hiring of Kate Nakano as its new girls basketball coach. Nakano was an assistant the past two seasons at University, which went 18-11 last season. Nakano, who previously assisted at Pinewood-Los Altos Hills and CCSF, replaces Demetrius Jackson, who coached five seasons for the Irish, compiling 73 wins against 60 losses, including 5-18 and 0-10 in WCAL last season and 23-5 (10-2) in 2023-24. \u2026 Mission San Jose-Fremont boys basketball coach Mike Kenney, an off-campus coach, is out after a historic 22-11 season that featured the program\u2019s first NCS championship and first 20-win season in more than 22 seasons. Kenney told the Chronicle on Thursday that he was given no reason for being let go. Messages to Mission San Jose principal Amy Perez were not immediately returned. \u2026. Longtime Milpitas football coach Kelly King (243 wins, 36 seasons) announced his retirement last month. Longtime assistant\u00a0Rey Elzey is taking over.<\/p>\n
Briefly: Longtime Rancho Cotate-Rohnert Park administrator Henri Sarlatte has been named assistant NCS commissioner to join promoted new Commissioner Bri Niemi to replace Pat Cruickshank, who is retiring Aug. 31. Sarlatte replaces Sonjha Phillips, who has been promoted to associate commissioner. \u2026\u00a0 University\u2019s girls cross-country team (4.00) was one of nine teams recognized as CIF Academic Team champions for their excellence (team GPAs) in the classroom. Crystal Springs Uplands-Hillsborough received three in boys soccer (3.95), boys swim and dive (3.95) and boys basketball (3.93); and Lick-Wilmerding earned them in softball (3.93) and girls lacrosse (3.93), and Marin Academy-San Rafael won them in boys lacrosse (3.83) and baseball (3.91). Other locals: Mitty badminton (3.92) and Carondelet-Concord competitive cheer (3.70).<\/p>\n
Freelance writer Mitch Stephens has covered high school sports for the Chronicle since 2001. Email: mitch@scorebooklive.com<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armen Varteressian, father of Valley Christian baseball coach Adam Varteressian, sits with granddaughter Mila Rose at Santa Clara…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[951,2044,88,90,89,127],"class_list":["post-357616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-high-school","tag-high-school-sports","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357616","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=357616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}