Vaqueros Fall in Regional Final to Palomar

By Jimmy Friery

SAN MARCOS, Calif. – The Santa Barbara City College Baseball team fell to top-seeded Palomar in the decisive game three of the Regional Final, 9-0, on Sunday at Bob Vetter Field. The Vaqueros' season ends one game away from the State Championship tournament, the farthest the program has advanced since 2015.

All of the scoring came in two half-innings. A grand slam did the brunt of the damage in Palomar's five-run fourth, and four more in the sixth all but solidified the result.

Both Cooper Tinkey and Adam Tripp escaped bases-loaded jams in the first and second innings before Tripp worked a clean third inning.

Three straight singles began the bottom of the fourth, giving Palomar a 1-0 lead. After a sacrifice bunt and walk to load the bases, though, a grand slam bumped the score to 5-0. The Vaqueros could never really get back in the game.

In the sixth, the damage came in a different way but had a similar impact. With runners on first and second and one out, Palomar executed a double steal. The ensuing groundout thus scored a run to make it 6-0. Then, two walks loaded the bases followed by a two-run single. Another single scored the fourth run of the inning—third with two outs—to make the deficit an insurmountable 9-0 for Santa Barbara.

Darren Orlando pitched the final 2.1 innings perfect, albeit without much at stake. The Vaqueros mustered five hits, with Sean Asperger accounting for two of them.

As their streak of Western State Conference North titles was snapped, the 2026 Vaqueros made up for it in two ways—sweeping their road Super Regional at conference winners Hancock, and having their deepest postseason run in a decade. As recent history suggests, playing in Jeff Walker's Santa Barbara program is essentially a guarantee of being involved in big games. This year's team proved just that.