Central Arizona College baseball wins NJCAA championship for second time in four seasons

Central Arizona third-year pitcher Shane Spencer wanted to avenge a loss when he stepped on the mound for the 2022 National Junior College Athletic Association World Series national championship game.

Spencer was the losing pitcher in the 2021 NJCAA World Series championship when Central Arizona College lost to McLennan College, making the Vaqueros the national runner-up.

“Of course, there was a vengeance out there,” Spencer said. “But at the end, it was more of that I love to pitch. I love to have the ball in my hands. I was built to pitch in the big games.”

In 2022, Spencer got his revenge.

He allowed two runs in 6⅓ innings in the 2022 World Series championship game in Grand Junction, Colorado, on June 4, leading Coolidge-based Central Arizona to a 4-2 victory over Cowley County Community College.

“It feels great,” Spencer said of being a national champion. “Like, I'm still screaming on the inside. These past few days, it's been great. A few minutes go by, and it's like, ‘Oh, I'm a national champion,’ and it's amazing. It's such a great feeling and I'm glad I get to do it with the team that I was with this year.”

Second-year pitcher Drew Sommers closed out the game for the Vaqueros, pitching 2⅔ shutout innings.

Sommers, who also closed the national championship game in 2021, said he wanted to be on the right side of history this year.

"We couldn't let history repeat itself,” Sommers said. “We had to make sure we win this time.”

But the Vaqueros couldn’t just rely on shutdown pitching, head coach Anthony Gilich said.

Throughout the 2022 season, Central Arizona posted a team .299 batting average and .418 on-base percentage. The Vaqueros hit 90 home runs in 2022, with 25 coming from third-year player Kiko Romero.

Throughout the Western District tournament and World Series, Romero hit 12 home runs.

Romero, who earned a spot on the all-tournament team with Sommers, was also named the best offensive player and most valuable player of the World Series.

“He's been probably our best player for three years in a row,” Gilich said. “He's just such a good player, he has a high baseball IQ. His hitting gets all the attention, but I think he can play five different positions on the field. And he's just a really good baseball player.”

Central Arizona lost its first game of the double-elimination World Series on May 29. So, the Vaqueros had to play the rest of the tournament in a winner-take-all format.

Although the early loss shocked the Vaqueros, they weren’t fazed by facing elimination for the remainder of the tournament.

“Everyone on the team had nerves going into that first game,” Romero said. “After that, we kind of settled in. Gilly (Gilich) said, ‘If there's a tougher team that's gonna do it. It's gonna be us.’ No one is really panicking. We were all just doing what we could do, and we were fortunate to be able to get it done.”

After the series-opening loss, Central Arizona won five games in five days to clinch the NJCAA Division I World Series title. The Vaqueros were crowned national champions for the second time in four seasons.

Central Arizona had an entirely different roster between the 2019 and 2022 championships, as most players stay on a community college baseball team for just two years. Romero and Spencer have been with the Vaqueros since the 2019-20 season because the NJCAA gave all 2020-21 student-athletes an extra year of eligibility.

Even with high roster turnover, Gilich and his coaching staff led the Vaqueros to three consecutive national championship game appearances in 2019, 2021, and 2022 — the 2020 tournament was canceled because of COVID-19.

“The guys put in all the work, the assistant coaches do an unbelievable job and they don't get enough credit,” Gilich said. “And so, you know, it's a moment in a journey that our guys are never going to forget. Just to make it once is an incredible feeling. To make it three years in a row is something I haven't really been able to process yet.”

Gilich will face another high-turnover offseason as Sommers, Romero and Spencer are transferring to four-year institutions to continue their baseball careers. Sommers and Romero will still be teammates when they both join the University of Arizona baseball team in the fall.

Although Romero is leaving the Central Arizona baseball program on the heels of a national championship, he knows the Vaqueros will continue to be successful.

“The recruiting here I think is their best, their best quality,” Romero said. “Kids want to go here, good kids want to go here. And I think that's the best part of this team being good, year in and year out.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Central Arizona baseball wins NJCAA championship for second time