There’s a clear distinction in approaches to the follow up after winning a state championship.

Some programs embrace being the state champion. The language is about defending their title, and everyone is coming after them, so they have to dig in and prepare for everyone’s best shot.

No one is hoisting that trophy but them. It is theirs until someone else earns it.

It works.

It’s just not Valley Christian’s process.

They remember and cherish it. No mistaking it. A reminder hangs outside the baseball dugout that the Trojans won 2024 and 2025 3A state championships. It’s hard not to see those plaques every time they take the field.

And now they are chasing a third straight. Not defending the previous ones but pushing for a new one just like every other team out there.

“We never talked about defending,” Valley Christian coach Vince LaGatta said. “We’re chasing our championship for this season. This is a different team. Every year starts with the mindset of creating a new path. There are no guarantees. We have to earn it every day. There’s a lot of good competition in our conference and every day we have to prove who we are.”

It’s a crucial difference.

Chasing something new implies no one is content and the previous accomplishments have no bearing on what happens this year.

There’s urgency instead of complacency.

“I think for us, we wanted to flip that mindset,” senior outfielder Brock Jackson said. “Instead of thinking teams are hunting us, we want to hunt them. We want to be the ones taking care of business instead of (the opponents) trying to knock us off.”

The meat of the regular season schedule is about to begin with 3A Central Region games and some tough freedoms games because up until now it has been a lot of tournament play.

The Trojans, who have won 36 straight region games since losing on April 14, 2022, finished the Bob Everett Classic 3-1, but earlier in the season the team took a mission trip to Texas while also playing tough competition. They had three one-run defeats including a walk-off walk and balk off.

As frustrating as that might have been, the reason for being in The Lone Star State was bigger than baseball.

“From a mission standpoint, we realized we need to enjoy every day we get the chance to play,” Jackson said. “The kids at the baseball camps we worked at had so much joy it was a reminder that we can’t take this for granted.

“And from a baseball aspect we had a chance to see teams we’d never played before and even though we went 0-3 we played Trojan baseball.”

Valley Christian enters the week 7-4, but a closer examination shows all four defeats are to programs outside of Arizona. In addition to the losses in Texas, the Trojans lost to two-time national champion Bishop Gorman out of Las Vegas on Wednesday as part of the Bob Everett Classic.

When the initial baseball rankings come out on Tuesday, the Trojans will sit somewhere near the top. While advancing to the championship game the last three seasons, the Trojans earned the No. 1 seed all three postseasons.

The offense appears to be a championship level through 11 games as five regulars, including Jaxen Maxey who missed some time due to a leg injury, hitting over .400 with a team total of 53 extra base hits including 17 home runs.

Nate Danzeisen, Brayden Waggoner, Cameron Bergloff, and Jackson lead the team with three home runs each with the latter two leading the way with 17 RBI.

On the mound, 11 different pitchers have a combined 3.08 ERA with 100 strikeouts and 44 walks in 63 2/3 innings with junior Ty Paschich topping at just over 10 innings.

It all points to Valley Christian making another run at it when May comes around because it has become the norm after Damon Gilliland took over in 2018. He went 104-18-1 before stepping down after losing in the championship game in 2023.

LaGatta was an assistant and took over in 2024, going a combined 64-8 with two state titles.

“When we took over, and I owe a lot to the previous coach Damon Gilliland, we set the culture,” LaGatta said. “We had a really bad culture here. We turned that around and he laid the groundwork of the program you see today. We have tried take that legacy and build on top of that.”

The legacy will only grow if Valley Christian manages to do something no 3A program has ever done – chase down a third straight state title.

“It’s a new season and new players have to step up,” Maxey said. “Everyone can make impact, and we play with a chip on our shoulder, but we play like we are chasing down our first one.”

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