South Mountain entered the ACCAC playoffs as the number four seed and headed to Prescott, Arizona to take on the top seed Yavapai College, ranked tenth in the nation. The two teams would play a best of three series for the right to play in the ACCAC Championship series next weekend.
In Game 1 of the series, South Mountain sent freshman Scott Mueller (2nd-Team All-ACCAC) to the mound. He got off to a rocky start, allowing three runs in the first inning, but settled in to hold the Roughriders scoreless over the next four innings. South Mountain answered the three Yavapai runs with a five-run outburst in the fourth inning. Dan Colella led off the inning with a home run and was followed by five more Cougar hits to put South Mountain on top by the score of 5-3. The Cougars added single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to stretch the lead to 7-3. In the bottom of the sixth, Yavapai took advantage of a hit batter, a wild pitch, and an error to score four unearned runs, tying the game at 7-7. In the eighth inning, Josh Tarnow drew a leadoff walk for the Cougars and Steven Pesqueira hit a two-run home run to put the Cougars up 9-7. Joe Alvarez came on in relief of Mueller in the ninth inning, retiring the final three batters and preserving a 9-8 win for South Mountain.
Game 2 of the series was once again a match-up of All-Region pitchers, CJ Retherford for South Mountain and Matt Trink for Yavapai. For the second straight day, Yavapai was able to score first and take a lead in the first inning. South Mountain scored one run in the third inning on a double from Jesus Luna. In the fifth inning, Yavapai scored four runs on only two hits to take a 6-1 lead in the game. However, the Cougars were not finished as they added a run in the sixth on a home run from Anthony Franco. The Cougar offense struck back in the eighth and ninth innings scoring a total of six runs, led by two-run doubles from Kala Ka’aihue and Luis Nieblas. Heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Cougars held an 8-6 lead. After recording the first out, the Yavapai offense answered with two singles and a walk to load the bases for the ACCAC’s leading hitter Kyle Blanks. Blanks hit a grand slam on the first pitch he saw to send the series to game 3.
In Game 3 of the series, South Mountain sent Dustin Brader to the mound. This time, the Cougars were able to score first and put the game out of reach early. The Cougars loaded the bases in the first inning and Josh Tarnow blasted a grand slam to extend the lead to 5-0 in the first. Steven Pesqueira added a solo home run to lead off the second inning to give Brader a 6-0 lead to work with. Brader went on to pitch the best game of his year, holding Yavapai to only five hits and one run over 8+ innings of work. South Mountain added four runs in the eighth inning on RBI doubles from Josh Tarnow and Jesus Luna and another run in the ninth inning on an RBI triple from Max Leon. The Cougars won by the final score of 11-1, advancing to the Region 1 Finals for the third time in seven years.