Sunday, August 23 · Capuchino High School — With four innings gone in the Division II championship game, the NorCal Muffins' perfect season was four innings from being a footnote. They trailed the Alameda Goons 6–1.

 

Then they did what they had done twenty times already this summer: they kept coming.

Ten unanswered runs across the fifth, sixth and seventh turned a five-run deficit into a five-run lead. Nineteen hits on the afternoon. Final score 13–8, and with it the first Division II title in franchise history — the last win of a season that produced no losses at all.

 

Sixteen and zero in the regular season. Five and zero in the playoffs. 21–0.

 

The playoff run opened on July 26 with a statement. The Muffins hung 15 runs on 15 hits against Bay City Rays Legacy, breaking a scoreless game with a four-run fourth and a seven-run fifth. Cameron Godfrey went six innings and allowed two hits.

 

The West Bay Reds pushed them harder than anyone did all year. On August 2 the Muffins survived 8–7 in the morning — Godfrey and Jacob Pubill each throwing 4.1 innings, Kevin Kuang recording the final out for the save — then answered that afternoon with a 14–5 win on 16 hits. One game was the closest the perfect season ever came to ending. The next was the loudest it ever got.

 

Alameda came next: an 8–1 win on August 16 behind seven innings of one-run, three-hit ball from Godfrey. Then the title game, and the comeback.

 

Larry Kuang, MVP

 

Larry Kuang (#6) was named Playoff MVP, and the line explains itself: .579 average, 11 hits, 11 runs scored, 9 RBI, a 1.000 slugging percentage and a 1.640 OPS across five games. Three doubles, a triple and a home run — and the home run came in the championship, part of a 3-for-5, three-RBI afternoon.

 

He also played shortstop every inning of the postseason.

 

Cameron Godfrey, Pitcher of the Playoffs

 

Cameron Godfrey (#55) carried the rotation. Over four appearances and 18.1 innings — more than any pitcher in Division II but one — he went 2–0 with a 1.96 ERA, a 0.98 WHIP and 13 strikeouts, holding opposing hitters to a .132 batting average.

 

Six innings against Bay City. Seven against Alameda. The ball in the opener of the West Bay series. In a five-game run he threw better than a third of the team's innings and gave up four earned runs total.

 

The Kuang brothers

 

Larry and Kevin Kuang hit .579 in the postseason. Both of them. The same average, to the thousandth, on 11 hits apiece.

 

Larry did it from the two-hole with the power — the .579 came attached to a 1.000 slugging percentage. Kevin (#17) did it from the three-hole with the on-base skill and the legs: a .680 OBP, 10 runs scored and six stolen bases, the most on the team. He also picked up a save on the mound in the tightest game of the run.

 

Batting back-to-back for five straight games, they combined for 22 hits, 21 runs and 16 RBI. Opposing pitchers had no version of the second inning that worked.

 

 

It took the whole roster

 

Nick Au (#21) hit .412 with a .524 on-base out of the eight spot and caught every inning of the postseason, including a 4-for-5 game in the clincher. Daniel Esparza (#45) hit .364 and drove in seven. Carlos Jimenez (#36) drove in eight and stole four bases. Memo Gomez (#41) reached base at a .542 clip and drew a team-high six walks. Javi Manila (#1) scored nine runs from the leadoff spot with a .480 on-base percentage.

 

 

On the mound, Jacob Pubill (#40) went 2–0 in relief and threw 4.2 innings of one-run ball to bridge the championship comeback — the pitching half of that ten-run swing. Brian Levy (#37) logged 13 innings and a win. Justin Rodgers, Rojan Karn, Jacob Parsons, Isaac Alvarez, Simon Kuang and Ryan Ward filled out a roster that never once had to look outside itself.

 

 

Perfection.

 

Twenty-one games. Twenty-one wins. A first championship for a team that had never won one, delivered by way of a five-run comeback in the only game that could have taken it away.

 

Congratulations to the NorCal Muffins — 2026 SJ NABA Division II Champions.

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Read that and thought about it?

 

SJ NABA is a non-profit adult wood-bat baseball league serving the Bay Area, with three divisions organized by skill level — so you play against people who play like you. Plenty of our players hadn't put on a uniform in years before they showed up.

 

Free tryouts are Saturday, September 12 in Alameda. All positions open. The season opens September 26 — miss the tryout, and you miss the season! 

 

Sign up for tryouts here!