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Baseball: Coach Cunningham is smiling

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To see Sherman Oaks Notre Dame assistant coach Tim Cunningham smiling in the dugout at Dodger Stadium Thursday after the Knights’ 4-2 victory over South Hills in the Southern Section-Toyota Division III final was a moment to savor.

Last October, Cunningham suffered a ruptured aorta and underwent emergency surgery. Notre Dame players didn’t know if he’d survive, let alone coach again.

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‘It destroyed us when we heard he might not come back,’ second baseman Casey Ryan said.

The school, family and friends rallied around him, and he made a remarkable comeback, so seeing him enjoy himself and have his usual wit showed he was really back.

‘It’s therapeutic,’ Cunningham said of the victory.

He was an assistant on Notre Dame’s 2000 runner-up team and head coach for Harvard-Westlake’s 2003 runner-up team, so he finally got his championship.

‘Third time is a charm,’ he said.

-- Eric Sondheimer

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