Cypress won the CIF-Southern Section Division 2 championship last year. The Centurions won the Division 2 title in 2005, after which Coach John Weber said, “There was some sense that there would be a major letdown” in ’06.
But that ’06 team won the Empire League title, was 20-1 in the regular season and was top-seeded in the Division 2 playoffs, although it lost in the second round.
Weber thinks this year’s team could be OK post-championship year, too.
“Our kids made great strides over a very difficult schedule I put together for them in the fall,” he said.
A look at the 2014 season:
• Cypress is Orange County’s only defending CIF champion. Last year, Marina got to the Division 1 final in which it lost to Harvard-Westlake of Studio City, which some websites named national champion. Capistrano Valley Christian lost to Desert Christian Academy of Bermuda Dunes in last year’s Division 6 championship game.
• Five county teams are in calhisports.com’s California preseason top 20: No.8 Mater Dei; No. 9 Orange Lutheran; No. 12 Fountain Valley; No. 14 Huntington Beach; and No. 20 Los Alamitos. The website’s “on the bubble” county teams are Aliso Niguel, Cypress, JSerra and Mission Viejo. Harvard-Westlake is No. 1.
• With three Sunset League teams in that state top 20, Fountain Valley coach Deric Yanagisawa anticipates a very competitive league season. “Los Al’s got the pitching,” Yanagisawa said, “Huntington Beach returns nine starters, Edison will be better, Marina got to the Division1 final last year, and Newport Harbor, if in some other leagues, would be those leagues’ favorites.”
• The Trinity League, with three teams in the county preseason top 10, could be similarly tough. “Everybody but Mater Dei brings back their Nos. 1 and 2 pitchers,” JSerra coach Brett Kay said. “It’s going to be ultra-competitive like it’s always been.”
• Orange Lutheran freshman starting left fielder Tristan HanoianGreg Hanoian
• Vince Brown is again a head coach, and again at Foothill. A multi-sport star at Mater Dei, Brown had been a coach at Tustin and Woodbridge before running the Foothill program from 1996 to 2003. His record at Foothill is 146-64; his overall record is 321-139.
• The Loara and Newport Elks tournaments are under way. The Loara Tournament is a 32-team event. The Elks has 66 teams divided over five divisions.
• Mater Dei was not invited back to the National High School Invitational, a tournament in North Carolina that it won in 2012 and ’13. That’s not because the organizers grew wary of the Monarchs’ success. “They told me they wanted 16 different teams in it this year so they can market it toward different programs,” Mater Dei coach Burt Call
• Studentsports.com’s preseason national rankings have Mater Dei at No. 23.
• No county teams are No.1 in the CIF-SS preseason rankings, but several are near the top. In Division1, led by Loyola of Los Angeles, Los Alamitos is No. 2 and Santa Margarita is No. 3. Aliso Niguel is No.2, behind Temecula Valley, in Division 2. Sonora is No. 4 in Division 4 and Capistrano Valley Christian is No. 2 in Division 6.
• In addition to Los Al and Santa Margarita, JSerra (No. 5), Fountain Valley (No. 6), El Dorado (No. 9) and Huntington Beach (No.10) also made the Division 1 preseason top 10.
MORE IN THE 2014 O.C. BASEBALL PREVIEW:
Fast track to Dodgers Stadium?
Top 10 players to watch in 2014 (plus other players to watch)
Preseason O.C. top 10, key dates
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
