Brett Super continues to live up to his last name.
In 20 innings this month, the junior right-handed pitcher at Sage Hill has allowed no runs and six hits, and has 30 strikeouts with only four walks.
For the season, Super is 11-0 with a 0.60 ERA. He has an Orange County-leading 116 strikeouts in 81 innings. Super, who also plays third base, is tied for the team lead in RBI, with 22, and triples, with four.
Around the horn in Orange County baseball:
• The playoff schedule is easier to follow this week. All second-round games are Tuesday and the quarterfinals are Friday. The semifinals are May 31 and finals are June 4.
• The Division 1 semifinals again will be played at Blair Field in Long Beach. The first game is at 4 p.m., the second at 7 p.m. Which teams play at 4 and which play at 7 will be announced Saturday.
• Admission for the Division 1 doubleheader will be $8 for adults and $5 for students with valid student identification and for children 13 and younger.
• Championship games in Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4 are June 4 at San Manuel Stadium in San Bernardino. Championship games in Divisions 5, 6 and 7 are June 4 at UC Riverside.
• Two Division 1 second-round games are O.C. team vs. O.C. team rematches: Cypress at El Dorado, and Orange Lutheran at Huntington Beach. Cypress beat El Dorado, 11-0, on March 1 at El Dorado. Orange Lutheran beat Huntington Beach, 5-3, on Feb.29 at Hart Park.
• Foothill’s Division 2 second-round home game against Carter of Rialto also is a rematch. It’s not a regular-season rematch, though. In last year’s Division 2 first round, Carter beat second-seeded Foothill in a first-round game at Foothill.
• Sage Hill (24-1) has a team ERA of 0.89. It has the longest winning streak among county baseball teams at 23 games.
• El Toro has the next longest streak at 13. JSerra has won nine in a row, and Katella, Mission Viejo and Woodbridge have won six in a row.
• The leagues with O.C. teams in them that did best in the first round of the playoffs were the Crestview and North Hills leagues. Those leagues, with two playoff representatives each, both went 2-0 in the first round. Crestview League teams Esperanza and El Dorado are in Division 1, and North Hills teams are in Division 2.
• The Crestview and North Hills leagues are the two leagues in the Century Conference’s eight-schools group, with those eight schools separated in the Crestview and North Hills leagues with those league memberships differing from sport to sport. So the Century Conference is 4-0 in the playoffs.
• Leagues with county teams in them that went 2-1 in the first round: Academy (Division 6); Orange and Pacific Coast (Division 3); and Trinity (Division 1).
• The largest upset for an O.C. team so far is Villa Park’s 8-1 win over Bonita of La Verne in the Division 2 first round. Bonita was seeded third and was the home team.
• The Orange County All-Star Game is June 7, 6:55 p.m., at La Palma Park’s Dee Fee Field in Anaheim. (Glover Stadium is the football part of La Palma Park.) The Kiwanis Club of Greater Anaheim organizes and manages the game for charity. Admission is $5.
• Capistrano Valley Christian, which takes a 15-11-1 record into its Division 5 second-round game at Citrus Hill of Perris, has played many higher-division teams. Three of the Eagles’ losses are to Division 1 Trinity League teams (two to Santa Margarita, one to St. John Bosco), one is to Division 1 Edison, one is to Division 2 Sea View League champion Mission Viejo and two are to Division 2 Bonita.
• Fullerton advanced to the Division 4 second round via forfeit. The Indians’ first-round opponent, Torrance, which won the game, held a pregame batting practice. Pregame batting practice is a violation of CIF-SS baseball and softball playoff rules.
• That violation is widely known because of well-reported batting-practice violations of recent years. Also, batting-practice rules are highlighted and in bold-face capital letters on page 3 of the CIF-SS Baseball Playoffs Bulletin that is easily found at the CIF-SS website.
• In some sports like football and basketball, officiating crews working games in Orange County are from non-Orange County officiating associations. In baseball, the umpires working games in O.C. are from the Orange County Baseball Officials Association. The CIF-SS decides which sports must have out-of-area officials.
• In the O.C. media top 10 polling this week, this voter’s top 10: 1. JSerra; 2. El Toro; 3. Orange Lutheran; 4. Cypress; 5. Aliso Niguel; 6. Mission Viejo; 7. Marina; 8. Foothill; 9. Santa Margarita; 10. Huntington Beach.
• Santa Margarita did not qualify for the playoffs, having finished fourth in the six-team Trinity League. This voter is certain that Santa Margarita would be champion of many O.C. leagues or at least qualify for the playoffs in most of them.
• “Sedoo Slope,” the incline that slopes upward toward the fence in right-center field at Foothill, has influenced many games. It did so again Thursday when Evan Mickelson’s 11th-inning blast to right caromed off of the fence and rolled quickly down the slope before the San Juan Hills right fielder could get it as the winning run scored in the Knights’ 4-3 win in a Division 2 first-round game. “That hill is notorious,” Foothill coach Vince Brown said. “I’ve seen a lot of nose plants by people going up that thing.” The slope is named after former Foothill coach Gerry Sedoo.
• Orange Lutheran coach Eric Borba on Lutheran lefty Chris Burica: “I’ve had a lot of good pitchers come through Orange Lutheran, but I don’t know anybody who has been more impressive.” Burica, a senior who signed with Creighton, is 7-1 with a 0.66 ERA and 62 strikeouts in 632/3 innings. If you’re wondering “What about Gerrit Cole?”, Borba is in his seventh season as Orange Lutheran head coach, so he did not have the job when Cole, now the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ace, was pitching for the Lancers.
• When Cypress’ James Acuna rested in the dugout after pitching the sixth inning Friday, his teammates adhered to baseball tradition and did not speak with him about the potential no-hitter and pretty much ignored him. “I was by myself at the end of the dugout,” said Acuna, who would finish his no-hitter in the seventh. “They were all up against the fence and nobody really said anything to me.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
