Central Catholic reaches section title game after second run-rule win over Del Campo
Early in the postseason, Central Catholic’s Max Medina was looking for other ways to help the team. His offense was sputtering.
He finished the regular season hitless in his last three games and did not record a hit in the first round of the playoffs, quarterfinals or Game 1 of the best-of-three semifinals series. But he found other ways to contribute.
In the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV quarterfinals against Twelve Bridges, he came on as the relief pitcher, allowing just one run as the Raiders made their comeback. He earned the win and struck out four batters and reached on an error and scored a run.
After the game, he said though things were not going his way at the plate, he wanted to do anything he could to help the team.
That same bat that let him down late in the season woke up Thursday and Friday in a pair of win-or-go-home contests. After they dropped the first game of D-IV semifinals series to Del Campo, 9-2, Medina and the Raiders’ offense answered back Thursday with an 11-1 run -rule win. Medina went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Friday, in the series-deciding game, Medina worked double duty, pitching the complete game with nine strikeouts and tallying another two-hit game with a double, a pair of RBI and a run scored as the Raiders won their second straight postseason contest in five innings, 13-3.
“Just trusting the process,” he said. “Every day, me and my dad get in the cage and talk baseball stuff. Trying to keep baseball just baseball, it’s a game at the end of the day. … The approach side of it, I was just trusting my hands, seeing the ball deep and letting everything go.”
Medina still made an impact on the mound. The 2025 Valley Oak League Pitcher of the Year pitched the full game, giving up just four hits and three earned runs but striking out a season-high nine batters.
Two of his three wins on the mound this season have come in the postseason.
The No. 2 team in the D-IV bracket, the Raiders take on No. 1 Roseville in the section championship game Saturday, May 23 at Cosumnes River College at 10 a.m.
“We just felt prepared,” Medina said of the win. “We’ve been working our tails off day in and day out. We lost Game 1 of the Oakdale series, so we’ve had our backs against the fence before. We knew if we played our type of game we could compete with anybody and that’s what we showed.
BRODEN THOMAS HEATS UP
After being held scoreless in the bottom of the first inning and falling behind 3-1 after two, the Raiders’ offense caught fire in the final two frames, putting up four runs in the third and eight in the fourth to break the contest open and secure their second straight run-rule victory.
Medina settled in on the mound over the next three and a half innings. He did not allow a baserunner in the third, fourth or fifth innings.
In the third inning, Hudson Walker singled home a run and Cruz Costa drew a bases-loaded walk to tie the game. Medina sent a bases-loaded single to left field in the next at bat, driving in a pair to give Central Catholic a 5-3 lead.
The Raiders brought 13 batters to the box in the dominant fourth inning. Kayden McHenry singled and Broden Thomas doubled to start the frame and Caine Walker and Marcus Davenport collected back-to-back RBI singles. They drew two bases loaded walks Chase Perino was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, scoring a run.
It was the second time in as many games the Raiders opened up an advantage by scoring more than five runs in an inning. In Game 2, they scored six runs in the top of the fourth inning to cap the 11-run outing.
Senior Broden Thomas overcame his own early-season hitting struggles to come up big Friday. The infielder finished with a game-high three hits including a double and joined Medina, Joe Farinha and Costa with two RBI on the day. Thomas drove in the Raiders’ final run of the game with an RBI single on the team’s last hit of the fourth inning. He also scored two runs and fielded the ground ball for the game’s final out.
“You gotta believe you’re that guy,” Thomas said of his ability to produce when the team needed it most. “You gotta believe in your swings, you’ve got to believe in yourself. Earlier in the season I wasn’t getting many hits, I didn’t know what to do, but I talked to my brother and he just told me to believe in myself.”
In Thursday’s win, Farinha and Chase Perino each had three RBI. Over the last two games, Farinha drove in five runs and Perino drove in four.
PLAYING FOR A BLUE BANNER
When the Raiders take the field for the D-IV title game, it will be Thomas’ fourth championship appearance. He was there in 2023 when the Raiders won the final two games of the semifinals against Christian Brothers and his older brother Braxton hit a home run in a 3-2 nine-inning championship win over Pioneer. He was also a part of the last two Raiders teams that finished as a runner-up.
“I can’t wait to get back to that game,” Broden Thomas said. “I’ll let guys (who haven’t been to a section title game before) know how it is. It’s up and down. You could go down five in the first and you’re winning by 10 the next. It’s crazy.”
The postseason will transition from a best-of-three semifinals to a one-off, winner-take-all game Saturday between the Division’s top two teams.
Central Catholic enters with wins in six of its last eight games while Roseville has won 10 games straight. The Tigers finished the regular season by locking up the Foothill Valley League title with a three-game sweep over Twelve Bridges and taking three non-league contests. They beat Beyer and Vanden in the first two postseason rounds and swept East Union in the semifinals, 8-0 and 11-1.
