Longtime Merced County baseball coach leads team to championship in final year
Buhach Colony High coach Greg Wakefield paced the dugout for the final time on Friday night. The longtime baseball coach is retiring from teaching after 28 years. He spent 26 of those years coaching baseball.
It was quite a final game as Atwater handed Buhach Colony its first Central California Conference loss with a thrilling 2-1 victory.
The game ended with Falcons center fielder Xavier Cardenas making a spectacular play with a diving catch on a sinking liner off the bat of BC’s Brandon Veenstra. Cardenas then doubled off the runner on second base to end the game.
“Great game,” Wakefield said. “Fun baseball.”
It would have been tough to script a better setting for the last game of a long career.
It was a night game under the lights at Memorial Ballpark with a large crowd against the crosstown rival.
It was the type of game that sends a coach through the full range of emotions with his team leading and then trailing. There was the frustrations of dealing with an umpire and his version of the strike zone. There was the anticipation of waiting for his players deliver the big hit as the Thunder left the bases loaded in the fifth inning and two more runners on in the sixth.
In the end, it was the Falcons night as Atwater pitchers Bo Valladao and Noah Perez held Buhach Colony to one first-inning run.
However, it was quite a career for Wakefield, whose Thunder teams always seemed to be in contention for CCC championships every year.
“He’s always had a really good program,” said Jarrod Pimentel, who finished his 14th season as the Atwater coach. “They are competitive every year.”
The Thunder sent Wakefield out as a champion as Buhach Colony went 9-1 to finish first in the CCC this spring. They finished 13-2 overall.
Wakefield was the BC coach when the school opened in 2001. He coached from 2002 through 2006 before stepping down to coach his son Adam coming up through the program. He then returned as head coach from 2012 to 2021.
He led the Thunder to nine league championships in the Valley Oak League and CCC during his time as head coach. He also spent time coaching at Los Banos, Merced High and Merced College during his coaching career.
Wakefield led the Thunder to Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championships in 2004 and 2005.
“Those are the types of things you remember,” Wakefield. “Our first team had only juniors and we won league and then the next year we went 29-2 and we followed that up. I worked with a lot of good people and some great coaches at Buhach Colony. If I try to name them all I’m going to forget a few.”
Wakefield was also fortunate to have a lot of talented players come through Buhach Colony over the years, including Dylan Floro, who won a World Series championship with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a relieve pitcher last year, and Daulton Jefferies, who made his Major League debut with the Oakland A’s last year.
Wakefield said one of the things he’ll miss the most is practice.
“It’s the every day,” he said. “Getting ready for practices, getting ready for games. I lived for the practices. I planned the hell out of practices. That’s what I’ll miss. That was a big part of my day.”
Buhach Colony athletic director Kevin Navarra says Wakefield will me missed.
“I sent him a text on Friday just pointing out the impact he had on players, coaches and parents,” Navarra said. “Not only has he run a stellar baseball program all these years but he’s also contributed to football as well. He was the cornerback coach all those years we had success in football.
“He’s one of those guys who is going to be hard to replace.”
