High School

Stanford-bound Graham Schlicht pitches De La Salle into the Northern California high school baseball finals

Regional semifinal roundup: Junior fires a 4-hitter with 9 strikeouts, Antonio Castro drives in two runs and Spartans reach NorCal D1 finals for third time in four years; Serra beats College Park

Mitch Stephens

De La Salle junior winning pitcher Graham Schlicht improved to 10-0 on Tuesday, giving up a leadoff homer and nothing more.
De La Salle junior winning pitcher Graham Schlicht improved to 10-0 on Tuesday, giving up a leadoff homer and nothing more. / Photo courtesy of De La Salle baseball

Stanford-bound junior Graham Schlicht didn’t let a tight strike zone or season-high four walks throw him off his game. 

Instead the De La Salle right-handed hurler improved to 11-0 and lowered his season ERA to 0.71 on Thursday, most importantly he lifted the Spartans into the California (CIF) Northern California championship game with a 3-0 Division 1 semifinal home victory over St. Mary’s of Stockton. 

Antonio Castro drove in runs 43 and 44 on the season and the the top-seeded Spartans (28-4) played another spotless defensive game to move into Saturday’s 4 p.m. championship against a West Catholic Athletic League rival, this time Serra, which defeated Los Gatos 3-0 in the other semifinals. 

The Spartans, winners of 28 of their last 30 games, look for their third NorCal title in four years, the other two came against two other WCAL squads, St. Francis and Valley Christian. 

Castro, a second baseman headed to Cal Poly, gave Schlicht all the runs he needed in the first, scoring Ethan Sullivan with an RBI infield single. Castro made it 2-0 in the fifth off UCLA-bound Nico Bavaro with a line drive RBI single up the middle. 

In the sixth, De La Salle made it 3-0 when Niko Baumgartner singled, moved to third on a single and scored on a wild pitch. 

Schlicht, a 6-foot-4, 200-pounder struck out two of three in the seventh to go out in style. 

The victory avenged a season-opening 4-1 loss in eight innings, also in Concord. The Spartans lost their second game of the season, 6-2 to Granada, but then rattled off 28 wins in their next 30 games. 

One of those wins was 5-2 over Serra at home on April 16.  Fourth-seeded St. Mary's (26-9), which lost in last year's NorCal D1 finals, got a excellent performance from Bavaro, who entered 8-1 with a 1.35 ERA. He gave up just four hits to a team that scored in double figures in five of its last nine games, while averaging better than 10 runs per game in its last five.

The Rams stranded two runnsers on in three of its first five frames as Schlicht bore down when he needed. The four walks was the most he allowed all year.

More NorCal semifinals baseball

No. 3 Serra 3, No. 7 Los Gatos 0: Nate Hui scattered seven hits and struck out two while going the distance for the third-seeded Padres (28-6), who got three hits from Ian Josephson and RBIs from Tyler Harrison and William Walbridge. The Padres are coming off their first Central Coast Section championship since 2009 and after losing 18 seniors off a star-studded team in 2024.

Division 2

No. 1 Yuba City 11, No. 5 Lodi 3: The host Honkers (30-5) scored four in the first, and when Lodi (25-10) closed to 6-3 in the fourth, they scored four more in the fifth to take control.

No. 2 St. Francis-Mountain View 2, No. 6 Acalanes 0: Landon Kim threw a two-hitter with five strikeouts and Tanner Wall had two hits and an RBI as the host Lancers (22-10) moved into Saturday's championship.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Division 1

No. 1 St. John Bosco 7, No. 5 Villa Park 4: Noah Everly had a single, double and two RBIs and four Bosco pitchers scattered five hits in a home win for the Braves (29-4), who broke open the game with four in the third. Aidan Young had two hits for Villa Park (25-8).

No. 7 Patrick Henry 5, No. 3 Crespi 3: Jimmy Gunn singled in two runs and Cody Cappelletti triple in a run leading the visiting Patriots (23-10-2), who got a combined three-hitter and five strikeouts from Tyson Bobo and Cappelletti. Crespi finished 25-4.

 Check more on this game later. 

manual

Published |Modified
Mitch Stephens
MITCH STEPHENS

Mitch Stephens is a senior editor at SBLive Sports for California, a state he's covered high school sports since 1984. He won multiple CNPA and CPSWA writing awards with the Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Chronicle and MaxPreps.com before joining the SBLive staff in 2022. He's covered the beat nationally since 2007, profiling such athletes as Derrick Henry, Paige Bueckers, Patrick Mahomes, Sabrina Ionescu, Jayson Tatum, Chiney Ogwumike, Jeremy Lin and Najee Harris as preps. You can reach him at mitch@scorebooklive.com.

Home/California