Valley Christian's first NorCal title: Behind the scenes (and on the bus) with the Warriors

SAN JOSE - It required precision, guile, skill and a perfect touch to circumnavigate the narrow two-lane road that snakes up Valley Christian’s hilltop campus to reach the valley floor below and get the Warriors on their way to the final game of the season.

Much like the way VC handled its business on the field during a stirring playoff run.

The Bay Area News Group rode along with the Warriors in their charter bus as Valley Christian traveled to Elk Grove for its CIF NorCal Division I championship game on Saturday afternoon.

The long bus ride set the tone for what became the most dominant win in the five-year history of the NorCal D-I title game, a 12-0 rout for the ages that capped a 38-inning scoreless streak by VC's pitchers.

But there was nothing particularly special about the ride over. The two-plus-hour journey began a little after 11:30 a.m. with coach John Diatte addressing his troops.

"Make sure you do what you need to do to get ready," he said. "By this point of the season, if you don’t know what you need to do to make sure you’re prepared, we’re in a lot of trouble.

"Focus on what’s important, and be amazing teammates right now."

With that, he retired to the front of the bus and settled in for the next 150 minutes, intermittently checking in on some college baseball games on his phone to pass the time.

Hours later, the bus pulled up at Elk Grove Regional Park and the players, some of whom had taken a pregame nap, decamped for the field.

The players picked up their bags and headed over to Elk Grove's baseball facility, which borders the park on one side. Hours of preparation began with one quick snag – catcher Logan Mull had his hands full with his catcher's gear and the NorCal championship medals and plaques, which Valley Christian took charge of transporting after upsetting top seed De La Salle on Thursday.

With a little help from Diatte, the championship memorabilia was picked up by another player and the Warriors were off.

Arriving about two hours early, Valley Christian had plenty of time to prepare for the game. And after the first pitch, the Warriors simply took over, scoring six runs in the first inning.

Elk Grove fans noted that the home team had survived that situation before, and they were right – sort of.

The Thundering Herd had trailed Soquel 8-0 after 5 ½ innings before mounting a stunning rally in their final two turns at bat, scoring five runs in the sixth inning and four in the seventh to win in a walk-off.

But Soquel didn't have VC's deep pitching staff, which hadn't allowed a run since the first round of the Central Coast Section playoffs.

As Valley took an 8-0 lead in the fifth and a 12-0 lead in the sixth, Elk Grove's season ran out of time.

When VC shortstop Nathan Choi threw the ball to third baseman Colton Hadfield to record the final out, it set off a boisterous dogpile in the middle of the diamond.

After Valley Christian's players picked themselves off the pile, they gathered along the first-base line to officially accept the NorCal trophy that had accompanied them on the bus.

Then they congregated down the right-field line, where Diatte – a notorious non-dancer – made an exception for the occasion.

Diatte is so stingy with dance moves that he invented an alter ego he calls "The Bandit," complete with a baby blue bandana tied around his face, who does the dancing for him when Valley Christian wins a CCS championship.

But that persona didn't make the trip up north.

"The Bandit couldn't make it today. Said he wanted the day off," Diatte said. "So it's all about me."

Then he jumped into the middle of the circle and cut loose, making his players go nuts.

"I only got two dance moves, guys," he said. "It's really limited."

That was enough on an afternoon that saw Valley Christian play a near-perfect game to end a storybook playoff run.

For pitcher Gabe Felix, who sat on the bench after exceeding the pitch limit on Thursday with 6 ⅓ scoreless innings against De La Salle, being his teammates' biggest cheerleader was a great way to finish off his high school career.

"It meant a lot," Felix told the Bay Area News Group. "Just to talk to my teammates and make sure that the dugout is putting positive energy into our players, I feel like it helps a lot, because when I’m pitching, it does help a lot to know that my teammates have my back to do the best that we can do."

The collective effort of Valley Christian's pitching staff was led by Adam Varteressian, who joined Diatte's coaching staff in 2017.

Varteressian's father, Armen, died in April at age 78 after years battling a lung disease. Armen was a staple at Valley Christian home games, setting up on a stool bearing his name by the dugout.

"It was hard because he came to a lot of games," Varteressian said. "Coach Diatte had been great to him. He was known as Papa Vart around the field."

The Warriors honored Armen for the rest of the year, maintaining his stool by the dugout and placing a picture of him with Varteressian's daughter on top.

The players even adopted his trademark celebration of tapping his chest twice and blowing a kiss.

"For me, those two things that they did to honor him at that time were pretty special," Varteressian said.

After spending 15 minutes or so celebrating with family and friends who had made the trip, Valley Christian packed up the bus and headed back down to San Jose.

In the midst of the joy of the occasion, the Warriors largely behaved themselves on the way back. Much of their energy had already been spent playing the game and celebrating on the field, and there were hours of travel still to come.

Around 9 p.m., the bus pulled into the back gate at VC and arrived just outside the football stadium, where the trip had begun nearly 10 hours earlier.

Players filed off the bus and gathered their gear, then took the long walk across campus to the baseball field down the hill.

Along the way, a security officer asked if they had won.

Had they ever.

"Congrats!" he responded.

They made their way into the clubhouse, putting the finishing touches on a dream day at the ballpark.

About eight hours after juggling the championship memorabilia alongside his catcher's gear, Mull, who was one of the last players to leave the clubhouse, presented Diatte with a baseball signed by the team.

Chase Vong, whose bases-clearing double set the Warriors up to win by 10-run rule in the sixth inning, also got his teammates and Diatte to sign a ball commemorating the occasion.

"A lot of our weight is being lifted off our shoulders right now," Vong said. "We’re in a moment of peace. I’m gonna remember this for the rest of my life."

The Warriors did not repeat their celebration from winning the CCS Division I championship, when players jumped into the campus pool.

Instead, they filed out of the clubhouse one by one with a plan to head to Mull's house to get their waterlogged celebration in. Mull's pool turned out to be broken, rendering that idea moot.

It was just about the only thing that went awry for the Warriors that day.

"Especially this year, I feel like we’re a lot closer, definitely,” Mull said. "We all want to win for each other. It’s the camaraderie that we have this year."

Diatte stuck around to finish uploading the game stats to MaxPreps and finally put a bow on a season that had stretched across four long months of games and countless practices over the course of the school year.

He ended his 37th year at VC in a quiet clubhouse with the one championship the Warriors had never previously won. And as one player noted, the Warriors would need a new banner at the field to commemorate this new title next season.

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This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 2:37 PM.