SARATOGA -- The message from head coach Bobby Hill was simple after the Vikings' two-run loss to No. 3 Ohlone on Thursday. He told the Vikings, who trailed by as many as six just to bring the go-ahead run to the plate in the eighth in an 8-6 loss, to keep their heads up, and to keep playing their brand of baseball. The easy thing would have been to revert to pressing, taking anxious at-bats or feeling nervous when on the mound. But No. 25 West Valley (22-12, 8-7 Coast-South) bounced back in a big way against the Renegades (29-5, 12-3 Coast-South), handing them their first series loss in a 4-3 pitchers' duel.

"It's a dogfight," said head coach Bobby Hill, who picked up his 100th victory as a Viking. "This team is capable of doing a lot of amazing things if they can just stay on course. Our model is, we bend, don't break. I feel like some of the losses this year, we broke, some of the close losses, we bent and we didn't break. I commend my guys because it's a dogfight. You're playing the first place team in conference and everybody is gunning for both us and Ohlone, so we know what we're up against. Yeah, it's a big team win here today."

Quincy Winkler took the ball for the Vikings and did exactly what West Valley needed him to. The 6-foot-8 righty had struggled late in his prior start against Cabrillo, but cruised through a couple innings and didn't allow a baserunner until the third inning, when Paul Wagner took a one-out walk. Teo Thompson followed by reaching on a fielders' choice, and after Caden Cuccia's ground out moved both runners over, Chuy Vasquez singled to put the Renegades up a pair.

But the Vikings struck back immediately. Parker Kristall and David Estrada ripped a pair of singles to set the table for Ryan Bays, whose groundout scored Kristall. After a Jordan Montez walk, Joey Damelio knocked a single through the left side to even the game at two. Ohlone's outfield defense, which was stellar all week, tossed out a runner at the plate on Bobby Hill's ensuing single and the game was even at two through three.

That's where the game stayed for a while, thanks in large part to the heroics of Winkler. He retired the first two batters in the top of the fourth, but a bloop double from Julian Cambra and an infield hit from Joaquin Stuart put runners on the corners. Wagner, who had crushed the Vikings going 6-for-12 with a homer and a double last season, grounded out to third to end the inning. Winkler followed with his best inning of the game, striking out a pair in a 1-2-3 fifth. It was a terrific rebound from a start where he lasted just 2.1 innings, bettering that mark against one of the states' best offenses.

"Working with [director of pitching Darold Brown] over the week helped me a lot," said Winkler, who finished five innings of two-run ball while striking out six with just one walk.
"Today, I felt way more confident. It wasn't really about my misses. When I wasn't throwing the fastball for strikes, it was mainly because I was thinking about it. And then I'd get back to just throwing the ball, just ripping it, and that helped me a lot."

Bryce Berry entered the game in the top of the sixth with the score still knotted at two. The strikeout maestro didn't have his best stuff but grinded, walking a pair but dancing out of trouble in his first inning of work. Wagner came back to haunt the Vikings yet again in the top of the seventh, leading off the frame with a home run to dead-center, his first of the season. But Berry, who seems to get stronger in games following adversity, coaxed a couple of groundouts and a flyout to keep the Ohlone lead to one. In the eighth, he allowed a leadoff walk but danced out of danger to keep the score the same.

"I can't say enough about Bryce," said Hill. "Bryce came in, did his job. Once again, it just comes down to character and makeup. And this team has a lot of it.
Bryce being one of them, veteran guy, big innings last year, big-game innings. He's capable of doing it. He didn't have his A-game today, but he gave me his best B-game and that best B-game was enough."

In the bottom of the eighth, sophomore Kenji Colston led off with a five-pitch walk against Ohlone starter Ben Thompson. But Max Ghiglieri struck out and Eric Altmark flew out, putting Ohlone in the drivers' seat again. Kristall, the conference leader in home runs, had one of the most unselfish at-bats of the season, working to a full count and laying off a high heater to put runners on first and second for David Estrada.

The Ohlone series was one for the record books for Estrada. With a home run on Tuesday, Estrada passed Josh Kreuzer for the most hits in a Viking career while becoming just the third Viking ever, and the first since 2004 with 100 RBI in his career. He's already the all-time doubles leader, a mark he cleared with his first double of the season. He has a real chance to be the Vikings' all-time leader in a majority of statistical categories by the end of the season. 

"It really, literally started his first year here," said Hill about Estrada, who redshirted his true freshman year in 2024. "My first year here. We both came to the program at the same time, and, he had some big time players in front of him. And Estrada could have gone anywhere else and probably started every single day. But there's parts of his game that we needed to work on and clean up and he sat right here (in Coach Hill's office), and we talked about what his redshirt season needed to look like and why we needed to redshirt him, and the importance of the redshirt. And if he does this, this, and this, he's going to show up and reap the benefit going into his next season. And he followed the protocol, and he just stayed with it. From the work he did on the field with his swing, a lot of days in that cage with myself and the other coaches, and then his diet, his training, he took off last year. He got a scholarship to Hawaii. He's hit the ball hard all year. He hasn't changed anything. Good hitters know how to hit. And if you're a hitter, you're going to find ways to hit. 
And he is a hitter. He may get fooled one at bat, but you try to fool him the second at-bat and he's not going to let you do it. He's gonna get you."

But past all the records, the unquantifiable skill that makes Estrada so special is his ability to come through in big spots. Sometimes, it's momentum-swinging plays. His first career home run came in the Vikings' first game of the year last season, unevening a 1-1 tie. He also hit the Vikings' last home run of the season, leading off the postseason in a 3-2 win over Cypress. Earlier this season, he hit a walk-off sacrifice fly to cap off the Vikings eight-run comeback over Butte. The career of Estrada is an amalgamation of moments that make you confident with him coming up in a big spot. And that's exactly what he did, hammering a ball to right-center that evaded the reach of the Ohlone outfield to give the Vikings the lead.

"First pitch," said Estrada, "I was going to take until [there was] a strike because he was kind of over all over the place, walked Parker previously. They've been trying to jam me inside, and they did a good job in the last two at-bats, but I'm like, 'don't come in the wheelhouse'. 
And I was able to hit hit it, and the wind kind of helped it [be] misplayed for the centerfielder."

It's been an incredible turnaround for Estrada, who as Hill mentioned, had been snakebit early in the season. Through February 21, a game against Cosumnes River where he went 0-for-2 to lower his season average to .167, he's gone 39-for-88, good for a .443 average. He extended to a season-long 13-game hit streak, and has multiple hits in each of his last seven games. 

Still, the Vikings had to throw up one more zero. Kristall, who has some of the best stuff on the team, set down the side in order while "pitching angry", according to Hill, and getting Anthony Mares to fly out to end the ballgame. With five games remaining in regular season play, West Valley still has a chance to lock down a top-two seed in the conference where Monterey Peninsula sits a game ahead of them, which would in turn clinch a postseason berth.

"This was an extremely important series for us," said Hill. "We lost the Thursday game this week to them, which set us back a little bit, but now we're kind of back on track to what we need to do. It starts Tuesday against Monterey, they've taken two games from us already this year. I have to just make sure we can control our emotions on Tuesday and play the baseball, not the opponent, and just try to get these guys dialed in for Tuesday and then get them ready for Thursday, and then Friday. So, yeah, we got five left, but we've got to take this thing one day at a time."