by Mark McDermott
When the Mira Costa baseball team came from behind to beat Agoura 9-7 in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 final on May 30 — winning the program’s first championship since 1953, and only its second ever — the title was also the seventh CIF Southern Section crown Mira Costa High School claimed in the 2025-26 academic year.
The whole roll: girls cross country in the fall; girls beach volleyball earlier this spring; and across an extraordinary two-week run, boys volleyball, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse, boys track and field, and baseball. The boys volleyball team also went on to claim the CIF SoCal Regional title May 23 and the CIF Division I State Championship on May 30, bringing the program its second straight state title and what is almost certainly its second straight national title — accomplishments the seven-title count does not include.
“It feels like a blur, but it’s the reality of where we are right now,” Athletic director Mike Rosenthal said.
The baseball title was, in many ways, the season’s most improbable. The Mustangs spent most of the year third in the Bay League. In four playoff games, they trailed and came from behind three times, and against Agoura they fell into a 6-1 hole before scoring five runs in the fifth inning, capped by senior catcher Kellan Finn’s two-out, bases-loaded triple. Designated hitter Nick Feidler’s solo home run in the sixth broke a 6-6 tie — the only home run hit in any of the six CIF games played at Goodwin Field that weekend.
Rosenthal was in Fresno with the boys volleyball team for the state championship match against Northgate while the baseball final was unfolding at Cal State Fullerton. He followed the baseball game by text message.
“I’m getting texts, and we’re down six one, and I’m like, what inning? And they’re like, third inning, and I’m like, it’s a lot of time,” he said. “There’s a lot of outs there. It’s a message for all of the kids — the game’s never over until it’s over. You just got to keep playing and keep pushing.”
The baseball team’s playoff path, Rosenthal said, had given the players exactly that kind of conviction.
“You come from behind against Arlington, and you’ve got lightning in a bottle, and you’ve got a little momentum,” he said. “That’s the thing with baseball — just a little bit of momentum, and you ride it. They’ve been playing really well for weeks. It’s nice for them to see that pay off.”
The arc of the win, he said, was a pattern familiar from other championship runs across other sports: the underclassmen deliver early; the seniors close it.
“The beauty of this run was really fueled by a couple of sophomores who had big moments and big games,” he said. “And then you get to Saturday, and Kellan Finn comes through with a huge hit, because he’s been a two-, three-year starter. Sometimes you need the young guys who don’t know any different to get you over the hump, and typically you get to the moment where the seniors really pull through and get you that title.”
For Rosenthal, who became Mira Costa’s athletic director in 2022 after a career as an NFL offensive tackle and Notre Dame All-American, the count of CIF titles is not how he thinks about a year like this one. The seven trophies, he said, are validation of what the program does. The individual stories of the kids matter to him more.
“That’s my why,” he said.
Asked what seven CIF Southern Section titles mean for Mira Costa, Rosenthal returned to the work.
“It means we go back to work,” he said. “We’re playing in the summer, we’re playing in the fall. There are a lot of special memories within those seven that I’ll always remember. We’re going to keep doing the same thing we do, and recognize that it was a great year here. But also, if we win one or we don’t win any next year — but we do the same things that we’ve always done — I’m just as happy.”
The through-line of the year, he said, was what he called the grind and the journey.
“You can’t substitute it,” he said. “Even the talented teams that we’ve had, you just can’t substitute the grind and the journey. You can’t get to the end and want to win because you have to. You have to knock over every stone on the way.”
What stays with the kids, Rosenthal said, is not the championship banner.
“This group of kids will forever be CIF champions,” he said of the baseball team. “They may live in the South Bay, they may live down the street from one another, they may move across the country or across the world. But this moment kind of always bonds them. In 15, 20, 25 years they come back, and it’s, oh yeah, we played together and we won a title together. It’s special, and not everyone gets to have that moment. So when you do have it, you’ve got to enjoy it.” ER
