Half Moon Bay, Menlo School to play for CIF Northern California baseball titles Saturday

Menlo (22-10), the No. 2 seed in Division III, will be on the road at top-seeded Roseville (29-4) for a 4 p.m. first pitch. The Knights advanced with a 2-1 win over No. 3 Alameda Thursday.

Half Moon Bay (22-9), the No. 1 seed in Division IV, hosts No. 2 Livermore (12-18) at 4 p.m. The Cougars punched their ticket to the final after hanging a mercy-rule, 10-0 win on No. 4 West Valley-Shasta County.

For Half Moon Bay, all of this is brand new. The Cougars won their first-ever Central Coast Section title last week and are appearing in their first-ever Nor Cal championship game.

This, however, is old hat for Menlo. Not only have the Knights won three straight CCS championships, they are appearing in their third straight Nor Cal final and are looking to make it two in a row after beating Santa Clara 2-1 for the Division IV crown in 2025.

Both the Cougars and Knights have ridden stellar pitching to CCS championships and the Nor Cal finals. Half Moon Bay could not be set up any better, with senior ace Kai Kung slated to get his second start of the week Saturday.

It will be Kung’s third start in a little more than a week. He pitched all eight innings in the Cougars’ 1-0 win over San Mateo to capture the CCS Division V title May 29, a week ago Friday. He toed the rubber in the Nor Cal opener, getting lifted after five scoreless innings, with the plan being he’d be available to pitch five more innings in the championship game.

Pitchers are limited to 10 innings per week and it will be, presumably, his second straight start on just three days’ rest.

Kung has peaked at the right time as he ran his scoreless innings streak to 19 1/3 innings in the playoffs, having allowed a total of 11 hits in three playoff starts. Overall, the Cougars have shutout out their last three opponents.

Menlo’s rotation is a little more complicated. Sophomore Reid Plamondon has been every bit as good as Kung, but has been used in both a starting and reliever roles during the playoffs. He pitched into the seventh inning in the Knights’ CCS opener and he capped their third straight CCS crown with six scoreless innings pitched in a 2-0 win over Wilcox.

Since entering Nor Cal play, Plamondon has been the Knights’ hammer coming out of the bullpen. He pitched three innings of relief to pick up his third win of these playoffs as Menlo rallied to beat James Logan-Union City 6-4 in Tuesday’s Nor Cal Division III opener, improving his season record to 7-0 and his career mark to 14-1.

He then earned his first save of the playoffs Thursday with 1 2/3 innings of relief to lock down the one-run win over Alameda.

Plamondon still has 5 1/3 innings of eligibility left this week. It’s certainly all-hands-on-deck time of the year, so you can bet Menlo manager David Trujillo will give his ace a chance to help the Knights win a second straight Nor Cal title in three finals appearances.

But will it be as a starter or out of the bullpen?

Streaking Cougars

The Half Moon Bay football program has an infamous history of streakers hitting the gridiron.

We’re not talking about that kind of streaking. The streak the Half Moon Bay baseball team is certainly more impressive as the Cougars ran their winning streak to 14 in a row. Their last loss came April 24, a 9-4 loss to South City. The following Tuesday, April 28, the Cougars beat Woodside 6-2 and have won every game since then.

During their run, Half Moon Bay has posted seven shutouts.

Cowboys resurgence

Despite its No. 2 seed, Livermore was an unlikely team to make it to a regional championship game. But the school’s baseball team is just the latest program to join a resurgence of Cowboys’ athletics over the last several seasons.

After struggling on the football field for many years, the Cowboys have turned the corner over the last five, going 9-2 last season. Meanwhile, Livermore boys’ basketball snapped a 12-year losing streak in East Bay Athletic League play.

And now the baseball team, whose claim to fame is Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, captured its first North Coast Section title since 2016.

Despite being about 60 miles apart, with wildly different climates, there are some similarities between Livermore and Half Moon Bay. The city located on the outskirts of the Alameda County has a heavy agricultural and ranching legacy, similar to that of Half Moon Bay.

And like the Cougars, who played in the Peninsula Athletic League’s Ocean Division, Livermore comes out of the EBAL’s second-tier Valley Division, where the Cowboys were just 1-7 and finished last.

But the strength of the EBAL, and not so much Livermore’s regular-season record of 6-18, earned the Cowboys the No. 11 seed in the NCS’s 16-team, Division IV bracket.

And as happens in the playoffs, the Cowboys got hot. They won four in a row to capture their first section title in 10 years and now find themselves in the Nor Cal final for the first time in program history — just like Half Moon Bay.

Livermore has bashed its way to the title game. The Cowboys opened with a 15-8 win over No. 7 University Prep-Redding. They then thumped No. 3 Immanuel-Reedley, 13-5.

Roseville on a roll

Menlo is not the only team enjoying a string of success. Roseville has won the last two Sac-San Joaquin Section Division IV titles, the third and fourth in program history.

It is also the Tigers’ second straight appearance in the Nor Cal Division III final, but unlike Menlo, they are still in search of their first regional crown. Roseville, which was seeded No. 1 in 2025, fell 2-1 to No. 2 Rancho Cotate-Rohnert Park in the final.

The Tigers come into the championship with a head of steam, having won 13 in a row, including both Nor Cal games by shutout — 5-0 over No. 8 Santa Cruz in the first round and 4-0 over No. 5 Wheatland-Yuba County in the semifinals. They have allowed a total of 15 runs over their last 13 games.