After a very lean period for the New Roads baseball squad, the Jaguars unit has finally found its roar thanks to new leadership on the field and in the dugout.
This past week, the Jaguars secured a playoff victory for the first time since 2016, defeating Bolsa Grande 6-4 in front of a Marine Park home crowd. The contest was the breakthrough New Roads has been looking for since the hiring of head coach Hector Zamora at the beginning of the 2022 season, going 0-31 between 2018 and 2021.
After an eight-year stint as an assistant head coach at Cerritos College, New Roads reached out to Zamora asking if he was interested in taking over the program. Hired one week prior to the 2022 season, the new coach showed up at Gandara Park not knowing if he was in the right place, considering the park’s field was little-league sized.
Zamora immediately went to work in shifting the program, not just reserved to finding regulation-sized fields to practice on like the one at Marine Park.
"[We changed] the culture, uniforms, players mentality, all across the board commitment," Zamora said. "[We] implemented a college-style format in regards to strength [and] conditioning through the course of our summer [and] fall into the spring for maintenance, in addition to skill development … normally these schools only participated during the actual spring, [during the] season, but on our behalf, we implemented a year-round program to develop."
Thanks to the new training structure, the young Jaguars roster began to believe in themselves after another tough 1-10 campaign in 2022. The team made a tremendous leap in 2023, clinching a Coastal League co-championship and a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) playoff spot. New faces contributed mightily, including Elio LaPorta, who captured the 2023 Coastal League MVP award as a freshman.
The new Jaguars crop have continued to produce in 2024, with one of the youngest teams in CIF having four sophomores and three freshmen in the starting lineup. Along with LaPorta, youth has anchored the team’s pitching staff, as freshman Santiago Jimenez and sophomore Xavier Walker were tremendous in starting roles, while freshmen Sebastian Berumen and Donovan Eastwood along with sophomore Asamino Spong have alternated in bullpen duties.
"It’s outstanding because it also sets the tone for the next two to three years," Zamora said of his underclassmen.
The squad’s upperclassmen have also contributed in a big way, with senior Tristan Nash finishing second in the Coastal League behind LaPorta in runs batted in, and junior Fox Raggio pacing the Coastal League in runs scored. Together, the Jaguars clinched an outright league championship with a 7-1 Coastal League record, including a two-game series sweep of rival Rolling Hills Prep, marking the first victories over Rolling Hills since 2013.
After a defeat in the first round of the CIF playoffs last season, the 2024 Jaguars erased that memory with the victory over Bolsa Grande, getting a key bases-clearing triple from Spong in the second inning to take a 4-1 lead before holding on for the 6-4 win.
"Since we’re a young team, one of the things for us was we’ve been [working on] maturity as we played through the spring season … [asking] can we take a hit?" Zamora said. "And can we strike back without giving up on the situation? [That game] was one of the big indicators regarding that we were able to do that and finally grow up as a unit, so that was very positive to see as a head coach."
Along with the growth of maturity and skill on the field, the Jaguars have bolstered camaraderie in the dugout, frequently hollering for teammates’ successes with the calling card "let’s go kid!" Zamora added that the fun extends to off-field activities with the roster and the greater New Roads community.
"We [like to] incorporate our families to be involved [in] hanging out like [doing] barbecues or [doing] special events that are not baseball related, but getting everybody involved, because the parents are also the ones that are taking the kids to practices and basically maintaining all the aspects of the program, so they’re very highly valued as well," Zamora said.
Up next for the Jaguars is a tough second-round test in the CIF Southern Section Division VIII bracket, as the team will travel to San Jacinto to take on San Jacinto Valley Academy, starting Tuesday at 3:15pm. Zamora said that he’s told players about the long drive ahead, but that they’re going to "go out there and compete" despite the legs feeling "a little heavy" from the ride.
Regardless of the result, the Jaguars have solidified a future foundation that will continue the team’s remarkable turnaround.
"[There’s] a lot of love towards every single individual … working with New Roads has been an amazing journey [and] it’s going to continue to be an amazing journey," Zamora said.
