The baseball team from San Bernardino Valley College and the softball team from Chaffey College are playoff-bound. The draw for both was announced on Sunday and each has a tough challenge ahead.

The No. 14 Wolverines (21-14-1) will challenge No. 3 Santa Ana (29-7), with their best-of-three series starting with a single game on Saturday. Game two will be on Sunday with the if necessary game to follow if the teams split the first two.

SBVC had to win three games last week against an improved Antelope Valley and it did just that, with two of those three coming on the road. That helped the Wolverines tie Chaffey for second place behind Rio Hondo which ran the table. SBVC got the nod ahead of Chaffey because it beat the Panthers head-to-head in their series.

Meanwhile the Chaffey softball team tied College of the Desert for first place. The Panthers (27-9) got the No. 15 seed and will travel to No. 2 Cypress (36-4) for games on Saturday and Sunday as well. COG got a No. 9 seed but it boasted a better overall record and a higher RPI.

The Panthers have traditionally gotten in the playoffs as a second-place team but always get a 1 or 2 seed and proceed to get mercy ruled in two games. But this is one of the school’s best teams and it shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

Here are the other matchups. The highest seeded team will host:

SOFTBALL

BASEBALL

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With fall sports now completely over, it’s time to see what local basketball teams have to offer. Today’s stop was at Rio Hondo College where the Chaffey men were squaring off against Foothill Conference foe Barstow in a consolation bracket game of the Roadrunner Roundup.

The Panthers (7-4) cruised to a 92-56 win. They have lots of players who can shoot it. Chaffey hit 13 3-pointers and most were from NBA distance.Kenny Morgan hit four of his six tries, all in the first half. Justin Long hit three 3′s while Justin Cole and Ryan Nitz each had two.

Three-pointers can be one of those feast or famine things. As long as you make your share everything is going. You can look vulnerable when they’re not going in.

The Panthers took pretty good care of the basketball, commiting just seven turnovers. That’s also a good sign.

Chaffey is the defending Foothill Conference champion and should be right in the mix again.

Barstow (5-6) is going to need to do better handling the ball or it is going to be in big trouble. The Vikings had 23 turnovers, most of those not necessarily forced. Zeke DeBlase, whom coach Reggie Howard thought was going to be his point guard, is out with a shoulder injury which could be season-ending.

Howard is relying on Abdulsamad Zaid to fill the void. He has moved from shooting guard to poijnt out of necessity and scored a team-high 19 with five assists but he had four turnovers.

The Chaffey College community has been rocked by the sudden passing of well-respected assistant football coach Stevon Thomas who was just 23.

Thomas, a product of Norco High School who also played at Chaffey and Northern Arizona, University was found dead some time between Sunday night and Monday morning. A cause of death is is not yet known.

Thomas was in his first year coaching the Chaffey linebackers. He was working toward a master’s degree and wanted to make teaching and coaching his profession, according to Chaffey head coach Carl Beach.

Work trickled through the Chaffey campus Monday. Beach said he had planned on telling his team before Monday’s practice but most of the players and members of the staff had already heard.

Beach said the school would remember Thomas at Saturday’s 1 p.m. against Long Beach City but formal plans had not yet been set.

The Chaffey College baseball team headed into the playoffs for the eighth straight year in better position than it has ever been in before. The Panthers were seeded No. 2 and were taking on a No. 15 Southwestern squad which was third in its conference and had to win a play-in game on Tuesday just to get a chance to face the Panthers.

And Chaffey had won 17 of its previous 19 games so it had been playing well.

But it was the Jaguars pulling off the upset 8-5 in the opener of a best-of-three series at Chaffey. The Panthers didn’t play poorly but the visitors played slightly better.

Game two is at 11 a.m. today with a deciding game to follow if necessary.

So it’s gut-check time for the Panthers.Even in winning efforts they have made things look difficult this season. Now their backs are really to the wall.

There is something about not getting over the hump at this school. It has happened in a lot of sports. But in the case of softball, that team typically just gets in and draws a No. 1 seed so it isn’t supposed to win.

The men’s basketball team has had some tough first round foes though it got over the hump this year.

We’ll find out what the Panthers are made of today..

The Chaffey College baseball team turned in a near-flawless performance in a 3-0 nonconference win over Golden West.

The Panthers were minus head coach Jeff Harlow who was ejected from Tuesday’s game against the same team and was sitting out the mandatory one game. But the Panthers were on auto-pilot.

They didn’t get a ton of hits – they managed just five but they were timely ones. And with Matt Anderson on the mound they didn’t need many anyway. Anderson went six innings and gave up just one infield single and a walk while striking out six. He easily could have gone the distance but it was a nonconference game and other pitchers needed work.

Chris Truitt had three of Chaffey’s five hits. One of those was a run-scoring triple in the third. He scored after that on a sacrifice fly by Anderson.

Chaffey has a big series on Tuesday and Thursday against San Bernardino Valley. Chaffey is one game behind Rio Hondo. SBVC is third and fighting for an at-large berth so those should be well worth watching.