Berkeley completes year-long mission, claims WACC Foothill Division title over Bishop O'Dowd

ALAMEDA - The celebration was a year in the making.

The Berkeley Yellow Jackets set a goal to win a league title following a 2025 season in which they finished three games under .500.

On Friday night, the mission was completed.

As Berkeley recorded the final out in an 8-1 victory over Bishop O’Dowd, the pent-up joy of capturing the West Alameda County Conference Foothill Division title finally burst out.

A mosh pit found its way to the pitcher's mound. Coach Matt Cord received a Gatorade bath as he was making his congratulatory speech. And not one, but two bottles of apple cider were popped to celebrate Berkeley's first league title since 2022.

Led by a dominant performance on the mound from UCLA commit Seddrick Henderson, Berkeley clinched an automatic bid to the North Coast Section playoffs, though its 21-4-1 record would have gotten the Yellow Jackets in regardless.

"I think whenever you start off the season, this is always where you want to end up," Cord said. "But there’s so many bumps in the road and you never know if it’s going to get there. But these young men, they played together as a team this entire year and it just feels right."

Henderson pitched 6 ⅓ innings, striking out six while allowing four hits and one earned run. Seniors Isaiah Mays and Miles Mino each knocked in two runs for Berkeley.

"We just knew what type of team we are," Henderson said. "Knowing what we were capable of, and playing our kind of game was key. Not over-complicating it and just playing the game of baseball is what ultimately brought us here."

Berkeley's dominant win started early.

With two outs and two on, Mays got the Yellow Jackets on the board in the bottom of the first inning when his blooper to left field scored Mino and Enrique Sotelo to give Berkeley a two-run advantage.

While Berkeley couldn't bring home runs through the next two innings, its patience forced O'Dowd's starter to run up his pitch count.

That patience paid off in the fourth inning when the Yellow Jackets got each of their first three batters on base. With the bases loaded and no outs, Mino doubled on a long ball to right field to score Quinton Hill and Akanni Owudunni.

While the offense was scoring runs, Henderson made sure O'Dowd wouldn’t threaten Berkeley's lead.

Henderson had 1-2-3 innings in the third, fourth and fifth, using his mix of fastballs and sliders to make O'Dowd's hitters miss.

"I was just trusting my stuff and not overcomplicating it," Henderson said. "I was just being me and trusting everyone on the field."

Though Henderson was taken out in the sixth, Berkeley didn't let its foot off the gas.

Hill's RBI single in the sixth added an insurance run to the Yellow Jackets' insurmountable lead. Ezra Brilliant took over for Henderson and struck out three in 1 ⅔ innings of work to close out O'Dowd.

O'Dowd coach Brian Mouton said he was proud of his team's effort against a team that had already beaten them twice last week.

"It’s a tough competition," Mouton said. "Seddrick is going to UCLA and I think we had better at-bats against them, but early in the game against a tough team like that, you can’t make mistakes."

Both teams will move on to the NCS playoffs and will have their division and seeding determinations announced on Sunday.

Cord said the Yellow Jackets won't be looking too far ahead after the win.

"We really try to take the mantra here at the end about one game at a time. Let’s win this one, and we’ll worry about the next one," Cord said. "We’re gonna try and do that through NCS, too."

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This story was originally published May 16, 2026 at 7:28 AM.