Sate Champs Looking Forward To The New Season

Ridgeview´s baseball team, also known as the State Champs, are here again this season to represent Ridgeview High School. Not only did baseball win the State Championships, but Valley as well.  Coach Jason Hunsaker has been playing baseball since high school as well as a bit of time in college. “ It’s a fun sport to play when I was a kid, I enjoyed it when I was in high school and then as I got older I liked coaching, I liked the coaching aspect, teaching other kids how to play ”. Playing since he was a kid and coaching for 19 years, Hunsaker continues to share and inspire his love of the sport with others.

Other players who share the same love of the sport are returning seniors Ty Pierce, Jacob Guttierez and Josh Gaeta. All of them started playing this sport at a young age, also realizing early on their passion for the game would continue to be with them for a long time. Like all other sports, not only is the sport a challenge physically, but a challenge mentally as well. Pierce gives an inference saying, “ That failure is alright, baseball is a big failure game, you could fail seven out of ten times and you could still be one of the best.” Although it will take more than failure to stop Ridgeview´s baseball team.

One of the other many baseball players for Ridgeview, Gaeta, agrees this sport can do much more than give you a physical challenge. “ It just makes me stronger cause like, It makes me like not want to give up, ”  Playing with this mindset led the team to great success last season, they had competed in Valley and State Champions last season and brought home gold. Coach Hunsaker gave a statement saying, “ That’s the first time any team in Bakersfield had won a State Championship, it was our first Valley Championship.” Leading the team to that victory was not only thanks to the hard work but the bond of the team played a tremendous role as well.

Guttierez gives this response after being asked about what led the team to success, “ Oh, for sure brotherhood, friendship, we built so much chemistry off and on the field, that was like one of the main reasons why we won for sure.” Adding on to this statement Gaeta gives a similar response saying, “ Just the brotherhood, everyone was connected like, it was amazing.” One of the team’s priorities for this new season is to continue playing this sport with the same connection and bond that this team had from the previous season. 

The bond and hard work does not go unnoticed when coming to see the team. Hunsaker gives a statement saying, “ The plans? Trying to win State again, always to win Valley, Valley is our goal and trying to win state now that we’ve won it once, try and do it again.” Pierce gives his biggest quote which is, “ My brother said this and I’ll say it, I like baseball.”