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CIF Championships: Foothills Christian to play for first title
- Updated: May 28, 2026
2026 EAST COUNTY PREP BASEBALL
CIF-San Diego Section Championships
East County Sports.com
EL CENTRO — Foothills Christian High will play for the school’s first-ever CIF-San Diego Section baseball championship following a dramatic two-game sweep of El Centro-Central.
The Knights, saddled with a loss during the first week of the double-elimination phase of the event, first captured Tuesday’s ballgame with the Spartans,4-2, to hand ECC its first setback.
Thus, a “playback final” was held on Wednesday (May 27), with the Knights again returning to the Imperial Valley and once again defeating the Spartans, 5-3, to gain a trip to the title game.
Foothills Christian, the seventh-seed, will meet Pacific League rival Francis W. Parker in the finale. The ballclubs finished in a tie for third place.
The fifth-seed Lancers (13-11) advance by blanking San Dieguito, 5-0, in their own playback final in the upper bracket.
The championship contest is slated for SDSU’s Tony Gwynn Stadium on Thursday at 7L30 p.m.
Game stuff
Buoyed by a three0run rally in the third inning, Foothills Christian mounted a 5-0 lead, then escaped the late hitting of El Centro-Central at Brighton Avenue Field.
The Knights enjoyed similar temperatures found in the El Cajon area in recent days, with the high in El Centro placed at 85 degrees. Still, the bats of the Knights started like wildfire.
The three-run rally needed just one pitch to ignite, when Johannes Jansen Granillo took the first delivery to deep right field for a lead triple.
Obviously shaken, ECC pitching fired a pitch into the dirt for a run, then hit “Captain” Jack Morgan with the ensuing pitch.
Anthony Garcia sent a short pop-up to right field which eluded both defenders to load the bases with no outs.
Jonah Nottoli came up and saw the first pitch sail wide for a ball, then the next pitch slipped too far inside, plunking the bater for what turned out to be an RBI.
Morgan then scored on a wild pitch for a three-run lead.
The next Knights runs came with more traditional methods.
In the fifth, Tylor Burrel singled home Morgan for a 4-0 lead. An inning later, Morgan came up again and sent a ground ball u the middle, leaving the shortstop with no play except to first base as Granillo came home.
The 5-0 cushion was enough for Granillo, the Foothills Christian pitcher, who carried a shutout into the sixth. Granillo finished by striking out six Spartan batters. He was also the lone batter from either side with multiple hits.
— Nick Pellegrino
