San Joaquin Delta College players celebrate after recording the final out in the California Community College Athletic Association Baseball State Championship on Monday.
It wasn't easy, but Mustangs bring home championship
Alex Breitler
May 30, 2018

State champions. How does that sound?

The Mustangs baseball team won its first state title since 2011 in dramatic fashion over the holiday weekend, coming from behind in the final game to top rival Sacramento City College by a score of 7-5.

After the final out, players jumped into a celebratory dogpile on the first base side of the infield. Their joy was understandable: Delta has gone to the Final Four in six of the past nine years, but of late has been unable to get over the top.

“It was an exhausting weekend, of course. That’s how we tend to do it,” Coach Reed Peters told The Record. “But we came through, and I’m so proud of this team. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish."

Peters wasn't joking. Delta won the first two games of the state tournament in Fresno. Coming into Monday, all the Mustangs had to do was win one of two games against Sac City. But they dropped the first game by a score of 6-3, and in the second game fell behind by a score of 5-2 after five innings.

It took a five-run bottom of the sixth to put Delta back in position to win the title. Tournament co-MVP Jordan Vujovich played a big part with a three-run double to tie the game. After the Mustangs jumped in front, it was up to co-MVP Kevin Kyle to hold the lead which he did by retiring eight of the 10 batters he faced.

"I guess the only word is exciting," Vujovich told The Record. "We worked all year for it, starting in August. We really wanted to finish this thing off."

The championship set off a chain reaction of ecstatic social media posts from the Delta family and the greater Stockton community.

But we'll save the last word for our champions: