PHOTO COURTESY OF STADIUMJOURNEY.COM
After securing a valley championship only a few days prior, Clovis Cougars and City head coach James Patrick added another piece of hardware to the trophy cabinet earlier this week at Chukchansi Park.
For the second year in a row, the City All-Stars held the County All-Stars to zero runs. In 2018 it was 4-0 and in 2019, 9-0.
A strong first inning saw the City team bat around the order and score four runs to open the contest. Clovis North’s Tanner McKenzie collected an RBI hit, and Buchanan’s Brock Jones and Clovis West’s Gordon Vaughn helped break the game open early with an RBI single and double respectively.
Although the County team featured Valley Champions in Liberty-Madera Ranchos Gage Arter or future collegiate players in Sanger’s Jake Harrell, Patrick’s men let their play do the talking.
Clovis West’s Michael Garabedian brought in two runs late in the game and Buchanan’s Miguel Ortiz brought in fellow Bear Brady Hormel with a sac fly to secure the victory and shut the door on any comeback attempt. City took the game 9-0 and made it nine wins in the past 11 meetings.
In total, 24 seniors from the Tri-River Athletic Conference made the team in 2019. Thirteen athletes came from surrounding schools. The coaching staff featured Patrick, his son and Clovis West head coach Kevin Patrick, his other son Chris Patrick, who is also a Cougar, and JD Salles, who is the head coach at San Joaquin Memorial-Fresno.
Patrick’s coaching staff was filled out with two men he is very familiar with: Clovis’ George and Storm Chandler.
Clovis North:
Bacci Bryant
Chris Ortega
Brady Crow
Conner Martin
Tanner McKenzie
Clovis West:
Karson Simas
Michael Garabedian
Gordon Vaughn
Jack Winn
Buchanan:
Jake King
JD Ortiz
Marcelo Saldana
TJ Fondtain
Brock Jones
Miguel Ortiz
Tanner Larson
Brady Hormel
Clovis East:
Matthew Mathis
Clovis:
Darrien Miller
Justin Tiger
Carson Evans
Zach Jimenez
Jake Sanders
Josiah Penberthy