Woodbridge baseball coach says abrupt ending a ‘tough way to go out’ during virtual ceremony

Woodbridge High seniors gathered for a picture before the season. From left: Jakob Trestik, Yohann Byun, Ethan Assayag, Ian Hardy, Grant Martine, Mekhi Wright, Adam Moylan, Danny Vasquez, Matt Spear, Dylan Hutton and Max Montplaisir, front. (Photo courtesy Woodbridge baseball)

Woodbridge High’s baseball team had won six in a row and was beginning to roll when the coronavirus pandemic began to strike and high school sports were suspended in March.

The season never resumed.

Warrior Coach Ryan Brucker never had a chance to honor his seniors in person but on Thursday night, Brucker welcomed players and their families to commemorate the season in a Zoom conference. OC Sports Zone was invited to cover the event.

Woodbridge finished 6-2 overall and wrapped up play with a 2-0 victory over Irvine in a Pacific Coast League opener.

“The season ending after eight games was a tough way to go out,” Brucker said during the conference. “The end of the season for me was a really tough thing with respect to where all three levels were at and how good we were performing and where the program was at.

“For me on the varsity level, I felt we had a really good team and aside from the talent, a really special group. The guys were really starting to come together. They had won six games in a row and were playing real well.”

Brucker said the focus of Thursday’s conference session was on the class of 2020, which lost most of the sports season.

After two opening losses, the squad was able to get untracked.

“We turned the corner; we went on a six-game winning streak,” Brucker said. “We had a come-from-behind victory against Cerritos who is a really good team, a (playoff) division ahead of us where we battled and stayed in the game.

“We had a couple guys make some big plays in that game for us to be able to win it and we took off from there. And then we opened league against Irvine and Max (Montplaisir) had a dominating performance. It was a really good feeling for me as a coach with the way our guys were coming together that I think we had a very good shot at making a run at league and then beyond that making a run at the CIF title.

“Our team was extremely talented. We were hitting over .300 as a team, our ERA was under two as a team and one of the things we always stressed and talked about was playing catch and we had a .973 fielding percentage through eight games so we were on the right track and all the baseball stuff was falling in the right place.

“But I think the more important part was the team was really gelling and the group of individuals we had on the team and the way they were coming together was really a special thing. If you were in the locker-room after our special wins …. it was a group of young men who were pulling for each other and fighting for each other and who loved each other. And for me as coach, that was the most important thing to see.”

Brucker said the loss of most of the season hit him hard.

“I knew we were in position to have a really good season, both on the field and off the field and so not being able to see the guys and have the guys be together and have them enjoy this 2020 season was a really tough thing,” he said. “It’s life and there are things that are bigger than baseball and that’s just the way it goes sometimes but I will always have this 2020 season obviously as a memory as a special group and the way they got along.”

Brucker then acknowledged the efforts of the seniors on the team.

The program culminated with the presentation of the Proud Warrior Award named in honor of former Woodbridge High baseball star Ryan Lemmon, the late son of Guy Lemmon. Guy Lemmon runs the Ryan Lemmon Foundation and has been a big supporter of the Woodbridge program and of baseball in Orange County.

In past years, Guy Lemmon has been able to present the award in person and offer handshakes and high fives. But on Thursday, Lemon sent his verbal congratulations to the two winners through the virtual conference.

The winners were pitcher Montplaisir, who is headed to Point Loma Nazarene and infielder Grant Martine, who is off to San Jose State. Both will be playing baseball for their teams.

As Lemmon talked about each player, the awards were handed to each during the conference with guests being able to see the individual presentations on their screens. Each player thanked Lemmon, their parents and Brucker and the coaching staff for helping them along the way.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com