With a 20-4 record, Fresno City College was crowned 2022 Central Valley Conference champions. For the Rams, it was their 24th conference title in 33 years under head coach Ron Scott. Fresno City last won the CVC championship in 2019.
After dropping its conference opener to Reedley College by a narrow 4-3 margin on Feb. 22, Fresno City went on to win its next 16 consecutive CVC games. The Rams closed out the conference schedule winning four straight.
Merced College finished in second place at 17-7 edging out third-place College of the Sequoias at 16-8. Reedley College (14-10), Taft College (10-14), West Hills College Coalinga (5-19), and Porterville College (2-22) rounded out the final CVC standings.
The CVC's top three finishers qualified for the 2022 Northern California Regional Playoffs that get underway on Tuesday (May 3) with play-in round games. Conference champion Fresno City received the CVC's automatic bid into the playoffs and is seeded No. 6. Earning at-large bids were Merced with the No. 9 seed and Sequoias with the No. 16 seed.
No. 16 Sequoias (24-16) will host No. 17 College of Marin (24-16) in a play-in round, single-elimination game on Tuesday at 2 p.m. The winner of the contest would advance to take on No. 1 Ohlone College (38-2) or No. 2 Folsom Lake College (32-6-1) in a best-of-three Northern California Regional Playoff series.
No. 6 Fresno City hosts No. 11 Lassen Community College in a three-game regional series and No. 9 Merced travels to No. 8 Los Medanos College for its best-of-three set. The regional playoff series begin on Friday (May 6) at 2 p.m. with Game 2 and 3, if necessary, on Saturday (May 7) starting at 11 a.m.
The winners of the regionals advance to the Super Regionals on May 13-15. The Northern California Finals/Sectionals are set for May 20-22 with the CCCAA State Championships scheduled for May 28-30 at Folsom Lake College in Folsom.