Maranatha’s Baseball Team Takes Home CIF-SS Division 3 Championship

Securing a third championship win since their first two back-to-back wins in 2008 and 2009, the Minutemen beat La Salle with a 4-2 win, with Maranatha’s right-handed pitcher Dawson Netz ‘19 ending the championship game with three shutout innings and striking out the side in the seventh inning to win the title.

Dawson recently spoke to the Pasadena Star-News and said, “I’ve been looking forward to this situation for over three years...it’s part of my competitive nature. And to finish the game off and win a CIF Championship, it couldn’t have gone any better.” Dawson, who has committed to play for the University of Arizona, was also chosen as Pasadena Star-News’ Player of the Year and Pasadena Now’s Most Valuable Pitcher. “Honestly, it started by taking it one pitch at a time, and one thing led to another,” stated Dawson to the Star-News about the championship game. “I wanted to make sure that I took care of the little things and that it would come together to become one big championship like this. It is really important to take care of each pitch and to execute that on a regular basis.”

Adding to the overwhelming success of becoming CIF-SS Division 3 Champions, Head Coach Matt Shupper earned the honors of being chosen as CIF Coach of the Year, Pasadena Star-News Coach of the Year, and Pasadena Now’s Coach of the Year for the second time in a row. Coach Shupper. who recently spoke to Pasadena Now, stated, “Those guys are guys that made this all possible, and as far as my coaches go, these are people I love and love to be around, and we work together on something we love and for those players and the school we love. I knew this (winning a CIF championship) was a real shot when we became the No. 1 seed. Our players deserve the credit, because each of them did something to make a championship happen. Obviously we have stars but it took 19 guys to get this done and I love each of them. I am not just proud of our success, I am proud of the boys and men we’ve become and we’ll never stop trying to grow as people or players.”

Congratulations to our Maranatha Baseball Minutemen!