‘He’s a throwback to an old-school catcher.’ Buhach Colony star selected MVP.

Buhach Colony baseball coach Greg Wakefield asked a lot of his senior catcher R.J. Garcia. Not only was the four-year starter a leader as a captain, but he also called his own pitches behind the plate.

“He does so much for us besides his playing,” Wakefield said. “Everything he does off the field. He’s a leader for us in the weight room. He gets our practices started. He does a great job calling all the pitches. At the beginning of the year I would help him, but halfway through the season he was putting together his own scouting reports.

“He’s a throwback to an old-school catcher.”

Garcia hit .384 this season to go along with 11 doubles, 29 runs scored and 20 RBIs in the middle of the Thunder lineup to help lead BC to a second straight Central California Conference championship.

The CCC coaches selected Garcia as the conference MVP.

“It really validated all the work I put in throughout the season and offseason,” Garcia said. “It really shows that hard work does pay off.”

Garcia took the leadership role seriously.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “As a catcher, I’m the only one who can see out into the field. Everyone else is looking in. My job is to put players in the right position. I take that responsibility seriously.”

With Garcia calling pitches, the Thunder pitching staff compiled a 25-7 record with a 1.52 team ERA. The Thunder also made a postseason run to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championship game before falling to Ponderosa 5-4.

“I got a little taste of it my freshman year when we had the opportunity to play at (University of the Pacific),” Garcia said. “We ended up losing in the second round, but that’s something I’ve been striving for ever since. The run we had with these guys this year was unbelievable.”

The other top awards handed out went to Buhach Colony’s Alex Kendrick for Pitcher of the Year, Atwater’s Jakob Faulk for Offensive Player of the Year and El Capitan’s Zachary Pilkington as Utility Player of the Year.

Kendrick finished with an 8-2 record with a 1.58 ERA. He struck out 82 batters in just under 58 innings.

“He was just really dominant in league,” said Wakefield, who was also named the CCC Coach of the Year. “He was like our stopper. If we had a bad day, he’d make up for it. It’s hard to describe everything he did for us. He was another MVP candidate.”

Faulk hit .343 with two home runs and 29 RBIs to help lead the Falcons to their best season in a decade as they finished second in the CCC with a 10-2 record and finished 25-6 overall.

Pilkington hit .274 with a team-high 29 runs scored. The senior was also 3-2 on the mound with a 3.72 ERA.

Buhach Colony was well represented on the all-CCC first team with four players. The Thunder first-team selections were pitcher Antonio Cortez, third baseman Jake Sapien and outfielders Dhelahn Tilghman and Brandon Ruiz.

They were joined on the first team by a trio of El Capitan players in pitcher Anthony Perez, first baseman Chase Minor and second baseman Julian Natividad Lopez. Atwater catcher Jacob Weiss, Central Valley shortstop Alex Solis and Golden Valley outfielder Jason Raine were also first-team selections.

The second team was comprised of Nathaniel Silva (Atwater), Grant Deal (Merced), Kadon Floro (Buhach Colony), Jacob Reyes (El Capitan), Xavier Stewart (Merced) Tarak Davuluri (El Capitan), Colby Flatt (Atwater), Dylan Webber (El Capitan) and Angel Vega (Central Valley).

This story was originally published May 30, 2019 at 12:23 PM.