Pretty incredible story considering the assistant coach was found dead before a game last yearWhat if I told you that Tucson has a baseball team that has won 49 of its last 50 games?
And what if I told you that team has outscored its opponents 383 to 49 this season?
Or if I told you it has a player who hit .636? Yes, .636. Have you ever seen a .600 hitter in baseball?
Desert Christian High School’s baseball team is like the introduction to an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary. The “what ifs” are fact, not baseball fiction.
What if I told you that the Eagles have a pitcher who has not yielded an earned run in 44 innings? That’s an ERA of 0.00, with 92 strikeouts.
And what if I told you that the Desert Christian players actually built their own ballpark, and that it is a little piece of paradise with up-close views of the Rincon and Catalina mountains? Or that between pitches you can hear horses whinny from a ranch adjacent to the third base dugout?
It’s all true.
The Eagles are 27-1 this year and twice this week, in back-to-back days, pitched no-hitters against overmatched opponents.
A lot of people might scoff that Desert Christian is a 1A school that plays in Division IV. The school has just 160 students, but coach Grant Hopkins’ team this year has whipped bigger schools Flowing Wells, Pueblo, Douglas, Walden Grove, Yuma Cibola, Glendale Apollo and teams from Idaho and New Mexico.
“People have told me that we must have recruited our players,” Hopkins said. “But it costs about $10,000 a year to attend Desert Christian. So, no, there’s no recruiting. Not possible.”
Monday was Senior Day at Desert Christian and at the conclusion of a 22-1 victory over the Arizona Lutheran Academy of Phoenix, the Eagles’ four seniors and their parents marched to home plate and were presented with bouquets of roses.
A crowd of about 200 people gave them a sustained ovation. It might be the most productive senior class in the history of Arizona high school baseball. That’s not an exaggeration; the four have gone 101-16 and are working on a third consecutive state championship.
Senior first baseman-pitcher Zach Malis is hitting .583 with 56 RBIs. An angular lefty, Malis has already gone 9 for 9 in two games this week. He hit .636 a year ago and holds more Arizona high school baseball records than anyone ever. Ever.
Senior lefty pitcher Andrew Edwards is 8-0 and has not yielded an earned run in 44 innings. Central Arizona College has offered him a scholarship and scouts have timed his fastball at 89 mph. And he’s hitting .464 with 42 RBIs.
Senior shortstop Camron White is hitting .452 with 41 RBIs. Not that anyone is surprised: White hit .548 as a sophomore.
Senior cleanup hitter Ryan Phillips is hitting .470 with 39 RBIs. As a sophomore, he went 2 for 5 and drove in three runs in the state championship game.
“Regardless of classifications, I think we’re one of the best teams in Tucson,” Hopkins said. “I don’t know how many teams have difference-makers like Malis and Edwards.”
There is a bit of serendipity involved. Malis planned to attend Sabino High School but after the first two weeks of the 2011-12 school year, transferred to Desert Christian.
“We get whoever walks through he door,” Hopkins said. “When Zach walked through the door, he became the X-factor.”
In the modern era of smaller-school Arizona high school baseball, Joseph City’s Wally Pate, Willcox’s Ryno Bethel and St. David’s Troy Bradford dominated the way Malis dominates at Desert Christian.
Pate went on to play at Yavapai College. Bethel played at Grand Canyon and in the Tampa Bay Rays’ farm system. Bradford was an All-Pac-10 player at Arizona.
Malis, who has chosen to play at Grand Canyon, now owns state career records — all — for RBIs (209), runs (200) and hits (208). His 1A Conference career batting average, .552, is a fraction ahead of Pate’s career .551, set from 1977-80. Beyond that, Malis’ state records for a season, both within 1A and for all levels, would require several more paragraphs. And he is 20-1 as a pitcher the last two seasons.
“I give them credit, they don’t rub it in when they beat you, they’re good guys,” said Jay Gonzales, a former baseball and softball coach at The Gregory School. “They go eight deep. Usually at the 1A level, if you go four deep, you’re a state contender.”
Desert Christian has won games 33-1, 32-0, 28-0 and 27-0 this season, but it’s not like the Eagles are unfeeling. On Monday, Hopkins emptied his bench in the third inning, replacing his four seniors.
“When they get up by 10 runs, they stop stealing bases, things like that,” Gonzales said. “They do it the right way.”
Hopkins, who played for Desert Christian in the late 1980s, is a stockbroker by day and a baseball coach by afternoon and night. He has studied the history books; he knows that no Tucson team has won three consecutive state baseball titles since the 1954-56 Tucson High Badgers.
It motivates him; his team is four victories away from joining that elite list.
“People say, ‘Why don’t you move up a class, to 2A or 3A?’” he says. “Well, we don’t have enough players for a junior varsity team. Last year we really only had 10 players.”
Next year, the Arizona Interscholastic Association will move Desert Christian’s baseball program up a class and add another division, putting them in a league opposite Amphi, Catalina, Pueblo and other much larger schools.
But that’s a story for another day. On Monday, as his team took an 11-0 lead in the first inning, Malis stepped into the batter’s box as the PA system played MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”
Malis lined a triple off the fence.
Can’t touch this, indeed.
http://tucson.com/sports/high-school/ba ... 569a3.html
Here is their field and campus, it borders the Agua Caliente WashDesert Christian assistant baseball coach Ryan Hanson, an instrumental part in the team’s run to a state title last spring, died unexpectedly Wednesday. He was 34.
The cause of death is unknown, and an autopsy will be performed within the next few days.
Ryan Hanson and his father, Mike, came to Desert Christian from Canyon del Oro before last season and helped the Eagles go 26-4 and win the Division IV state championship, their first in school history. They were also assistant coaches on CDO’s state championship team in 2009.
“It’s very tough,” coach Grant Hopkins said. “Without Mike and Ryan there’s no way we would have won last year. They brought a different level to our program.”
Ryan Hanson was a member of Sabino’s 1997 state championship team alongside current Sabercats coach Kelly Johnson who said Hanson had an incredible passion for coaching and helping kids get better.
“I think he had a very positive impact because he taught the game the right way, to be played hard,” Johnson said. “He drove the force that you’re going to play as a team and win as a team.”
Johnson described Ryan Hanson and his father as “best friends,” and said he was still in disbelief of the sudden death. The father-son combo was present for Desert Christian’s 8-2 win against Pusch Ridge Christian on Saturday, but Ryan Hanson suddenly fell ill after that. Neither was at practice Monday, and they both missed the team’s game Tuesday at Tanque Verde, something that was surprising to Hopkins.
“He was like Iron Man,” Hopkins said about Ryan Hanson. “He never missed anything.”
Mike Hanson found Ryan unresponsive Wednesday at their home before the Eagles played at Tombstone, Hopkins said. Hanson called Hopkins to tell him the news, and he didn’t tell the team until after the game.
Desert Christian is off to a 16-2 start and is ranked No. 1 in Division IV. Its next game is Saturday at 10 a.m. when it hosts Phoenix Country Day.
“They guys are distraught, and they’re trying to process it,” Hopkins said. “Most of these kids have never lost anybody before; this might be the first tragedy they’ve experienced.”
