Jake Bauers, born in Newport Beach and raised on Huntington Beach baseball diamonds, is heading to the World Series as the National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player.

The Milwaukee Brewers first baseman hit .266 with a team-best 26 home runs and 86 RBIs during the regular season, then drove in six runs across a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, according to the Daily Pilot. His signature moment came in Game 3 at Dodger Stadium. Bauers launched a 412-foot, two-run homer off two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell on the 11th pitch of the at-bat, giving Milwaukee a 3-2 lead in a game the Brewers won 6-2, the Associated Press reported.

Bauers, 31, attended Marina High School in Huntington Beach, where he graduated in 2013. That spring he led coach Robert Marshall's Vikings to the CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship game, a 1-0 loss to Harvard-Westlake at Dodger Stadium. The San Diego Padres selected him in the seventh round of the 2013 MLB Draft with the 208th overall pick, according to MLB.com.

The road back was steep. After hitting just .199 in 2024, Bauers nearly walked away from baseball. His wife Lauren had their daughter in late 2023, and with little interest from teams, he considered retirement, the Daily Pilot reported, citing an ABC News interview. He re-signed with Milwaukee on a minor league contract on Jan. 6, 2025, and made the Opening Day roster.

"I think what changed for me this year was I stopped caring about results," Bauers told the AP after Game 3. "I started caring about competing."

Bauers is not the only former Viking in Milwaukee's clubhouse. Closer Trevor Megill, 32, attended Marina for two years before leaving in 2012 for Loyola Marymount University. Megill has recorded 81 saves in three years as the Brewers' closer, according to the Daily Pilot, and anchored a bullpen that posted a 1.33 earned-run average (ERA) in the postseason. He picked up his second save of the NLCS in the Game 3 win, the AP reported.

Marina baseball coach Andrew Bynum told the Daily Pilot he was at a booster club meeting when Bauers hit the Game 3 homer. Bynum, a self-described Dodgers fan, said he videotaped the moment and told the room it was the one time he would root for Milwaukee because "Marina is up to bat."

The Brewers, who went 103-59 during the regular season for a franchise record, are in the World Series for the first time since 1982. Game 1 against the Tampa Bay Rays is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 23, at 5 p.m. PST on Fox at American Family Field in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.