CIF Championships: Morgan unconcerned about pitching depth

By Nick Pellegrino
Updated: May 23, 2026

2026 EAST COUNTY PREP BASEBALL
CID-San Diego Section Championships

East County Sports.com

Jack Morgan

Division 4
Foothills Christian 10, Mar Vista 9 (walk-off)
At Matt Lachappa Field, Lakeside: The reasons are strong and well thought out for why the smaller-enrollment schools in th CIFSDS only play once or twice a week.

Fewer students mean fewer student-athletes, which means smaller rosters, which means — most importantly — fewer pitchers.

Foothills Christian simply ran out of pitching in the seventh inning, allowing Mar Vista to score six times to take the lead.

Howver, key hits by “Captain” Jack Morgan and Josh Howard against Mar Vista’s own tiring pitching staff provedf to be enough, when the Knights scored three times to secure a wild. 10-9 walk-off decision in the CIFSDS Division 4 elimination game on Saturday (May 23).

Foothills Christian (20-12 overall), which gets to re-set its pitching staff come Tuesday, gains a re-match with El Centro-Central. The Knights need to defeat the Spartans twice in order to advance to the section title game.

Holding a 6-0 lead through two innings,the Knights were not too concerned when Mar Vista scored three times in the sixth.

But in the seventh, a 7-3 lead completely disappeared. Dominic Parra first slugged a three-run homer tomove to with 7-6, then an error exteded the contest, leading to a go-ahead, three-run homer from Jayden Cayetano.

Foothills Christian might’ve fallen into panic mode. Instead, the Knights answered back, scoring three times after they were two down.

Josh Howard slugged a game-tying, two-run double
scoring Jonah Nottoli (lead walk) and Tylor Burrell (double).

Mar Vista committed an error, so it intentionally walked a batter to load the bases. But on a 3-2 pitch, Morgan singled through the right side of the infield for the walk-off winner.

Early on, everyone thought a first-inning, two-run single by Trevor Cochrum would be enough, especially when the advance reached six runs thanks to Anthony Garcia’s two-run double in the second.

A quartet of Knights — Burrell, Garcia, Howard and Nottoli — finished with two hits each.

The triumph raises Foothills Christian’s record to 20-12, the school’s second 20-win campaign in its history. The record is 23-9 in 2017.

Division 5-AA
Tri-City Christian 24, Liberty Charter 20
At Joan MacQueen Middle School, ALine: Unlike the Foothills Christian game (cited above), both teams in this Division 5-AA contest between Liberty Charter and Tri-City Christian were out of pitching earlier in the week.

Alas, both ballclubs needed to play on.

Tied at 20-all, the host Eagles advanced on with four runs in the seventh, then kept the Lions scoreless in the home-half for their second win in Alpina this week by the sixth-seeds from Vista.

Liberty Charter, the No.-4 seeds, finsih with a record of 12-11, clinching a winning record for the fourth time in five campaigns.

One positive note: Josh Fredricks established a season postseason record with five RBI by a freshman. He batted 3-for-4 and scored twice.

Fisher Chase, another freshman, added three hits and tied the school frosh mark by scoring four times.

Sophomore Austin Stern also scored four times.

Tri-City Christian (14-3) was forced to use all frosh pitchers, with Baron McKillop tossing a shutout-seventh to gain the victory. The Eagles advance to meet top-seeded Calin Christian of Escondido.

Yes, this was the Lions’ highest-scoring postseason ballgame

— Nick Pellegrino