While the season’s first month started as 5-5, the Grossmont Griffins’ baseball team turned it around, finished the season with a winning record and secured a spot in the playoffs.
Whether it was the late heroics from sophomore first baseman MJ Sweeney in the ninth inning, the dominant pitching from sophomore, Issac Cota, or the way the players know how to score runs and finish with a hot four game win streak that landed them a 29-10 record, including a three game sweep of the San Diego City College Knights.
The Grossmont baseball team was going back and forth with Palomar College to get first place in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference (PCAC) standings. Unfortunately, the Griffins finished a game behind Palomar at the end of the season.
The final three games of the season against the Knights were filled with drama and excitement. In the first game of the series, down to the last strike of the ninth inning, Sweeney hit a go-ahead home run to put the Griffins up 10-9. In the bottom half, sophomore Trevor Morgan shut down the door to win the game.
“I was trying to get a good pitch, and when I got a fastball inside, I pulled the ball and I knew it was going into the gap, but later on, the ball kept on traveling and went over the wall for a home run,” Sweeney said.
In the second game of the series, Griffins won 5-4 in their last home game on campus, with two home runs coming from freshman Nico Newhan and sophomore Colby Corlett. There was a dominant five-inning pitch performance from Cota, with a save from Morgan.
In the final game of the series, the Griffins went all out on the runs against the Knights to win 11-5, with four runs from Sweeney. Some of the sophomores went out in a grand fashion, like Cota, Newham and pitcher Johnny Nuanez.
Some sophomores described being a Griffin as an honor: “Being a Griffin feels like I’m part of a family with my teammates and it feels like home,” Cota said.
Nuanez said: “Being a Griffin is lots of fun. There is very great energy with the team and the coaching staff is great.”
Throughout Randy Abshier’s 25-year stint as head coach, he’s given the ballplayers a second chance to potentially receive a scholarship to four-year institutions with the hopes of playing in the majors.
“The main objective of my tenure is to give these kids a second chance. We’ve had 45 players drafted, over 200 scholarships offered with two Division I players next year in MJ Sweeney and Nico Newhan, and three major leaguers,” Abshier said.
He said is the team is one big family and he hopes once they graduate from Grossmont, they’ll walk off the field as a better ballplayer and, most importantly, as better men. The baseball team has a saying: “Once a Griffin, always a Griffin.”
The Griffins should be applauded for the season they had because, one day, these men might be a great pitcher or hitter in the majors and reflect on how they were part of the “Griffin Baseball Nation.”
