CIF-SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISION 5 BASEBALL PLAYOFFS: Cerritos offense quiet for first five innings in shutout loss to Bishop Montgomery

May 20, 2026

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

Cerritos High head coach Matt Joyce had predicted a low-scoring contest when his Dons hosted Bishop Montgomery High last Friday in the CIF-Southern Section Division 5 first round playoffs. And the most part, he was spot on as senior pitcher Jacob Hoosac and his counterpart, Michael Flink were on their games.

But on this day, the huge advantage went to Flink as he was tossing a perfect game until senior centerfielder Jacob Johnson beat out an infield single with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Over 20 pitches later, Flink and his teammates were celebrating a 5-0 victory, ending Cerritos’ season at 18-9 and putting an end to a remarkable eight-year run in the 605 League.

“Honestly, we took good at-bats today; I don’t think we got a hit until the fifth or whatever it was,” said Joyce. “We just got outclassed by a really good arm, and I knew that was going to be a problem. We battled; we had good at-bats, and we did our best. Hoosac did a really good job through four [innings], but kind of ran out of gas a little bit and then it got away from us.”

Flink threw 15 pitches in the first inning, then decreased his pitch count to 12, eight and five over the next three frames, striking out four, inducing four groundouts and getting the other four to either fly out or pop-up. He needed eight pitches to get through the fifth and six combined pitches to the first two batters of the sixth before Johnson’s hit.

That was followed by another infield knock, this time by senior shortstop Jayce Aragon before senior right fielder Eli Sarno lined out to end the only legitimate threat. In the last inning, senior first baseman Ryan Salas singled on a 2-2 count with one out, But Flink got senior third baseman Justin Sagun popped up before posting his sixth and final strikeout to end the game.

Meanwhile, Hoosac was doing his job early on to keep the game scoreless, throwing 29 pitches through the first three innings, allowing a double to Sean Yanko on the fourth pitch of the game and walking Jack Hall to lead off the second inning. But in the fourth, he gave up a leadoff single to Yanko and a one-out infield hit to Ethan Peterson. Then Hall’s sacrifice fly scored the only run Flink would need.

“It felt like to me like he was toying with us,” chucked Joyce on Flink, who needed 78 pitches for his masterpiece. “I felt like it was another gear; I think when he had to get that strikeout, he got it. For Division 5, that’s a really good arm.”

In the next inning, Dominic Robley and Matthew Orozco each led off with singles with the former eventually scoring on an error. Two batters later, Evan Oh singled down the third base line to bring in Orozco and end Hoosac’s outing.

“It looked like he started missing,” said Joyce of one of his top two pitchers. “He kind of lost his command a little bit and they put some good at-bats on him. He was just a little bit better than them through four, then he just ran out of gas. In high school baseball when it’s win or go home, the heart starts to get heavy when they can see…we lost a little steam towards the end, and it was kind of obvious to me.”

During his outing, Hoosac was ahead in the count 0-1 10 times and had three batters connect on the first pitch while going to a 0-2 count once. Hoosac ends his season at 5-2 with a 1.42 earned run average, allowing 11 earned runs and striking out 55 batters.

The Dons, who won six of the seven 605 League titles and compiled a 60-4 league record since the formation of the circuit, had been bounced out in the first round of the playoffs in six of seven seasons before advancing to the quarterfinals in 2024 and the second round last season. in fact, the program had not reached the playoffs in 17 straight seasons from 1999-2015. Now, Cerritos will be in a new, but favorable five-team league next season in the new and improved Suburban Valley Conference.

“Looking ahead, obviously it’s going to be much more competitive than our league has been, and I think that will be a good thing for us,” said Joyce. “We’re going to be very young next year. We had a big group of seniors and they really, really loved each other.”