The Vikings baseball team is looking for a little playoff déjà vu after last year’s meteoric run to the final four.  
      
The momentum is in DVC’s favor as winners of its last five games, the longest current streak in the Big 8 Conference.  
      
The Vikings drew the No. 9 seed in the playoffs, finishing the year with a 23-13 record and will take on the No. 6-seeded Solano College in a best-of-three series, starting May 7.  
      
“I thought we would have had a sixth or seventh seed,” infielder Justin Manci said.  “But it does not make any difference to me, because we’re in the playoffs and that’s all that matters.”
      
Pitcher Chris Short echoed Manci’s statements, “I don’t care what seed we are. [The] bottom line is that we have to come out and play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
      
DVC and Solano played each other twice in the first two games of the season, each team winning a game at home.  
      
“It helps [to play them before] because we got to see most of their pitchers, hitters, and basically how they play,” Manci said. “And it gives us confidence knowing we can beat them.”
      
The Vikings will draw on the 2009 team for a blue print on how to have a deep playoff run without being a top five seed.
      
Last year’s team parlayed its No. 6 seed into an eventual third-place finish in the state playoffs.  
      
“It’s a new year,” Short said. “If we play the kind of ball I know we can, it could be a repeat of last year. We have it in us.”
      
Returning players Dustin Wold and Mitch Petrak were key to last year’s team and will look to lead the team back for seconds.  
      
DVC’s pitching staff is anchored by returning starting pitcher and Northern California preseason All-American Harmen Sidhu, who was the closer for last year’s playoff team.  
      
Finishing the year with a 14-7 conference record, the Vikings ended the season one game behind conference champion Sacramento City College.  
      
With 16 players from last year’s team either transferring or getting drafted in the MLB, many people predicted a down year for the Vikings. It didn’t happen.  
      
But the team isn’t just content with making the playoffs again.
      
“We need to stay on the path toward our vision,” Short said. “And the vision is a state championship.”

Contact Curtis Uemura at [email protected]