St. Vincent brings undefeated run into NCS baseball playoffs

After St. Vincent de Paul’s come-from-behind win in the season opener, new baseball coach Stan Switala told his boys they might just win every game this year.

Remarkably, they have, writing themselves into the Mustangs’ record books with a flawless 23-0 regular season, the first in school history. They cruised to an 11-0 win against Drew in the first round of the North Coast Section playoffs Tuesday.

The Mustangs face another challenge today in an NCS quarterfinal home game against Ferndale. St. Vincent is the No. 1 seed and Ferndale is eighth.

On that late February opening day, Switala wasn’t just blowing smoke. He knows raw talent when we sees it.

A former Division I college pitcher and minor leaguer, Switala was also a scout for the New York Mets for five years before he came to the North Central League II school in September. A former San Rafael High School coach, he replaced longtime Mustangs coach Gary Galloway.

“After that first game against Terra Linda, a Division 3 school, we came up with this thing that we weren’t going to lose all year,” Switala said. “Then it started to become reality.”

Against Terra Linda, the Mustangs and Trojans traded runs inning after inning, until St. Vincent went down 7-6 going into the fifth with night closing in on the lightless Petaluma field.

St. Vincent scored two in the bottom of the inning and held Terra Linda scoreless in the sixth for the come-from-behind win, 8-7, as the game was called for darkness.

“At the end, I told them that with that kind of attitude, we’re not going to lose all year,” Switala said. “Then it was, ‘OK, let’s see how that goes.’ … Then they really bought into it.”

Senior pitcher Ethan Rapoport, the staff’s ace, said faith from the coach changed the team’s mindset.

“Last year we had a great year, not undefeated, but it was good,” he said of the 20-6 squad, which advanced to the NCS semifinal round. “But the first day of practice, Coach said our goal was to win NCS. Our mentality changed.”

St. Vincent hasn’t won an NCS title since 2008.

After Switala said they could be undefeated, Rapoport said the team slowly began to believe it.

Against Credo, the team had a rare down day, falling behind by two runs going into the fourth inning.

“Our bats were kind of quiet,” Rapoport said, so as one of the captains, he gathered the team for a pep talk. “I said, ‘Let’s wake up, remember what our goal is.’”

The Mustangs scored five runs that inning, five the next and three in the sixth to win 13-2.

Two runs is the most St. Vincent has trailed by all season. In their 24 games, the Mustangs have scored 212 more runs than their opponents and have allowed just 60 runs, 23 fewer than the next stingiest NCL II team.

St. Vincent averaged 8.8 runs a game while conceding just 2.5.

In addition to Rapoport, who went 12-0 on the mound, had a 1.94 earned run average and led the team with a .508 batting average, the Mustangs hit .403 as a team, stole 146 bases and liberally used the sacrifice bunt, putting pressure on opposing defenses right off the bat.

The top of the lineup was super productive, Switala said.

Batting third, in front of Rapoport, sophomore Gio Antonini hit .478 and led the team with 34 RBIs and 13 doubles.

In Tuesday’s 11-0 first-round NCS win against Drew High School, Antonini went 2 for 3 with a double, triple and four RBIs. Rapoport threw four hitless innings and Antonini threw one inning in relief to close it out.

Senior Reno Nalducci, hitting .507 with 29 RBI and 43 runs scored, and two-hitter sophomore Andrew Kohler have also played key roles in the Mustangs’ undefeated run, Switala said.

“We almost didn’t take (Kohler) to varsity this year, and here he is, he’s done a great job for us,” he said.

As they face No. 8 Ferndale (15-8 overall, 7-5 league) today, the Mustangs keep their ultimate goal in mind: an NCS championship.

If they succeed, it will be St. Vincent’s first NCS title in a decade. Galloway, who coached the team for 33 years, also led the Mustangs to NCS banners four consecutive years, from 1986-1989.

You can reach staff writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.