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Santa Barbara Foresters win third straight NBC World Series baseball championship

Taylor Eldridge
·2 min read

The Santa Barbara Foresters’ stranglehold over the National Baseball Congress World Series continued with another dominant performance in Wichita culminating in a third straight summer championship on Saturday night.

A 12-1 win over the Hays Larks at Eck Stadium etched the Foresters in NBC World Series history as the first program to win three straight national titles since the Fairbanks (Alaska) Goldpanners wrapped up their three-peat in 1974 and only the third in the 87-year history of the event.

The Foresters very well may have the claim for most dominant three-peat, as the team has won 15 straight games in the NBC World Series (tied for the record winning streak) and outscored opponents 146-26 during that span. Only one game has been decided by fewer than four runs.

Not only did Santa Barbara have an explosive offense once again, this year’s pitching staff delivered its best performance to date. The Foresters finished with a staff earned run average of 1.47 in six games, which included more than nine scoreless innings combined from Wichita State pitchers Payton Tolle, who pitched a shutout in lone start, and Robert Cranz, who made two relief appearances.

Up against such a dominant force, Hays needed close to a flawless performance in Saturday’s championship game. Instead, the Larks were buried mostly by their own mistakes, as a litany of errors in the first two innings allowed Santa Barbara to grab a 6-0 lead and Hays never threatened after that.

Gavin Kash (3 RBI), Miguel Santos (2 RBI), Nate Rombach (2 RBI), Gianni Hovat (2 RBI) and Nick McLain all finished with two hits for the Foresters, while Parker Smith picked up the win on the mound by throwing six innings, allowing one earned run and striking out five.

McLain, a UCLA freshman outfielder, led Santa Barbara with a .571 batting average in the NBC World Series, while Kash, a Texas sophomore, led the team with six extra-base hits and 8 RBI to go along with a .520 batting average.