College World Series: Stanford’s South Bay stars lead Cardinal into Omaha

STANFORD – Eddie Park and Tommy Troy played their high school careers as rivals at Valley Christian and Los Gatos competing for section titles.

Three years later, the duo is leading Stanford to its third consecutive men’s College World Series in Omaha as best friends and faces of a team that boasts a healthy amount of local talent.

“He’s the one guy I’ve played the most games with and against,” Park said after Stanford clinched a CWS berth with a wild walkoff victory over Texas on Monday night. “I love that guy.”

“We’ve been best friends for a really long time, and it’s just really cool to be able to share an experience like that with him,” Troy said.

The Cardinal stars will face Wake Forest on Saturday at 11 a.m., a team that was last seen rolling Alabama 22-5 in the Winston-Salem Super Regionals.

The Demon Deacons (52-10) have scored 18 or more runs in 10 games. Brock Wilken has hit 30 homers for Wake Forest, and Nick Kurtz has slugged 24.

The pitching staff is anchored by Rhett Lowder, a righthander ranked as a top-10 MLB Draft prospect with a 15-0 record and a 1.92 ERA.

“They’ve been the best team in the country all year, so it’ll be a big challenge,” Stanford coach David Esquer said. “But we’ll be ready to play, and we’ve been there before … I don’t think the bright lights in the stadium will be a big factor for us.”

Troy (.397) and Park (.340) spearhead a Cardinal attack that hits .319 as a team and has belted 117 home runs in 62 games.

Troy, who had several family members in attendance at the win-or-go-home game against Texas, said being close to home has helped him thrive.

“It’s so awesome,” the projected first-round draft pick said of having family members attend his games. “The support system I have off the field is so important to my success.”

One of his biggest fans and supporters is his former high school coach Nate Anderson.

“Someone asked me if I’m surprised by what Tommy has done,” Anderson said. “I say no, because if you know Tommy, you know nobody ever outworks him. Ever.”

Six players on Stanford’s roster attended high schools in the Bay Area.

Three of them — Park, Troy and Serra alum Drew Dowd — played pivotal roles in Stanford’s victories over San Jose State, Cal State Fullerton and Texas A&M in the NCAA Regionals and against Texas in the Super Regionals.

For Esquer, proximity to home is just one of his selling points when recruiting Bay Area talents.

“We love keeping the best players in the Bay Area home,” Esquer said. “We expose them to great baseball and give them a chance to get that Stanford education.”

In a world where the transfer portal and NIL (name, image and likeness) opportunities have created unprecedented levels of roster turnover around college athletics, Stanford’s roster has sustained minimal changes due to the school rarely accepting transfers.

Park, the Cardinal’s leadoff hitter, said that roster stability helps the team build chemistry.

“I don’t want to say it’s better, but not having transfer guys, you get who you come with,” he said. “It’s just us, and that’s all we’ve got, and that’s our motto.”

John Diatte, Park’s coach at Valley Christian, watched his former player Monday night from the stands at Sunken Diamond. He said VC has a good relationship with Stanford, and that he was not surprised his former player is thriving at the Pac-12 powerhouse.

“You arrive at Stanford as a freshman and you have to compete for a spot on the team, and you also compete academically,” Diatte told the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday afternoon. “They keep their kids there, and that’s a real testament to the coaching staff and the school.”

Stanford (44-18) doesn’t scour just the Bay Area to find great California players. Drew Bowser from Los Angeles hit a home run in each of the three Super Regional games, and freshman Malcolm Moore is a Sacramento native who hits over .300 while also handling a talented pitching staff.

The best of them is Quinn Matthews, a 6-foot-5 ace from Aliso Viejo who made national headlines and sparked discussions about pitch counts when he threw 156 pitches in a complete game. 

Mathews, Park, Troy and others have been regulars in Omaha, but the school has not come out on top since the late 1980s.

Esquer was a standout on the Cardinal roster for the school’s first baseball title in 1987, and Troy thinks that after surviving five elimination games in the last two weeks, the Cardinal have what it takes to win its first national title since 1988.

“I think we have a lot of momentum going into Omaha this year,” Troy said. “I feel like we’re gonna get it done.”