Sabino players celebrates after winning the 3A State Championship game over Sahuarita 3-0 in Mesa, Monday, May 13, 2019.
Until last week, Canyon del Oro’s 2009 baseball and softball teams and Pueblo’s 1990 baseball and softball teams were the only schools to sweep those sports and win state championships in the same year.
That exclusive club grew to four when Sabino and Salpointe did the same last week.
Here are four takes on the 2019 softball/baseball champions:
1. After coach Shane Folsom's Sabino Sabercats won the 3A baseball title last week, his team posed for a celebration photograph with all players holding four fingers aloft. Four fingers? That was the jersey number of former Sabino coach Mark Chandler, who led the Sabercats to the 2018 state championship. A few months later, Chandler was removed from his position and Sabino stripped of the state title for alleged recruiting violations. Touché. The seven seniors from that ’18 team surely felt some redemption.
2. Salpointe softball pitcher Alyssa Aguilar went 22-3 this season, the winning pitcher in back-to-back state title games. She is only a sophomore, with a 36-6 career record, stepping into rare territory with those such as CDO’s dominating Kenzie Fowler a decade ago. Aguilar was able to hold Glendale Cactus star Alynah Torres without a home run in the championship game; Torres hit what is believed to be a state-record (for big schools) 23 home runs this year and had 64 in her career. She is headed to Arizona State. Keep an eye on Salpointe freshman slap-hitter Logan Cole, who hit .530 in her first varsity season with only four strikeouts in 92 at-bats. She has Pac-12 potential.
3. Salpointe baseball coach Danny Preble ended the Lancers’ 0-for-68 streak of yearly attempts to win the state championship. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Salpointe won it again next year; productive underclassmen Cade McGee, Ricky Santiago, Jaeden Swanberg, Levi Padilla, Luis Garcia and Gabe Preble, among others, will return. Preble’s coaching had a big effect in the state title game. His hitters were patient against touted Mesquite pitcher TJ Clarkson, a Pac-12 signee (Utah) who struck out 12 in 4º innings. But Clarkson had to throw so many pitches, 101, against the patient Lancers that he had to be removed with the game still in doubt. The AIA has a guideline that no pitcher throw more than 105 pitches in a game.
4. Grant Hopkins, who coached Desert Christian High School to consecutive state baseball championships in 2013, 2014 and 2015, joined Folsom’s coaching staff at Sabino and essentially won a fourth straight state title. He joined the staff partly because he had known Folsom since Folsom’s days of coaching at Catalina High School 15 years ago, and because one of his former Desert Christian assistants, Ben Fife, was on the staff. They joined pitching coach Tim Gillooly, who played on powerhouse teams at Salpointe 40 years ago but came up just short of a state title while a player.
This year as Sabino’s pitching coach, Gillooly is believed to be the first pitching coach in modern Arizona prep history whose team did not allow a run in all four playoff games — 24 innings, no runs, just 10 hits. Mike Snyder, Preston Clifford and Andrew Calloway combined on those historic state tournament shutouts.
