Valencia's last game of 2025 had a little of everything: a leadoff home run, a first career homer, a seven-run Chatsworth surge, and two position players finishing the game on the mound.

Cole DeYoung sent the first pitch sequence of the day over the left-field fence, and Valencia built from there: two more in the second on his two-run fielder's-choice grounder, then three in the sixth when Brady Ruffner singled home Carter Bennett and Francisco Velazquez Jr. hit his first home run on record, a two-run shot to left for a 7-0 lead.

The staff kept Chatsworth silent for six innings: Steven Genovese struck out the side in the first, Brett Cormany escaped a bases-loaded jam on a lined double play, and Charlie Romanelli threw three scoreless with a pickoff while Tyler Wertz threw out two base stealers behind him. Then the game tilted: three Chatsworth runs in the seventh and four in the eighth cut a 9-0 lead to 9-7 with the tying runs aboard.

Enter the debuts. JT Gurne, an infielder all fall, took the ball mid-rally and got a fly out and a pop out to strand the threat, and after Romanelli's double and Ripken Ely's sacrifice fly restored a three-run cushion, Brady Ruffner threw the ninth's final two outs to end it. Valencia is above .500 for the first time since the opener, winners of three straight.