Tough league making its stand in the postseason
The best baseball league in Orange County this year? It probably would be the South Coast League. Maybe the Trinity League, if you don't mind including non-county St. John Bosco of Bellflower in your assessment.
The county league with the most teams in the CIF-Southern Section quarterfinals Friday? The Pacific Coast League.
When new league alignments were created for this school year, an excellent Pacific Coast League baseball group was created when Laguna Hills and San Juan Hills left to become part of the two-league Coast View Conference and Woodbridge moved to the Pacific Coast from the Sea View League.
This Pacific Coast has three teams in today's Division 3 quarterfinals – Beckman, University and Woodbridge. Beckman (23-5) is at Paloma Valley of Menifee (15-11), University (19-11) is home against Culver City (15-12-1) and Woodbridge (17-11) is at Rialto (19-6).
Those three Pacific Coast teams are 7-0 in the playoffs, and have beaten their opponents by a combined score of 29-5.
A fourth Pacific Coast playoff team, Northwood, beat Lancaster in the first round before losing in the second round to top-seeded Bonita of La Verne.
Woodbridge coach Tim Murray said if CIF-SS rules allowed it, a fifth PCL team might have also done well in the Division 3 playoffs.
"We should have had five teams in the playoffs, with Corona del Mar in there," Murray said. "Corona del Mar beat us twice."
Corona del Mar also handed league champion Beckman one of its only two league losses (Northwood also beat Beckman in league play).
The CIF-SS rules for baseball, as created by the section's member schools and not, as uniformed opinion sometimes goes, by section officials, limit leagues to one at-large playoff team. CdM and University tied for fourth in the PCL with 7-8 league records, but tiebreaker criteria made University the league's No. 4 team.
Brandon Horth has been great hitting and pitching for Warriors, batting .466 with a team-high 26 RBIs and a 6-3 record and 0.93 ERA. Brennan Leitao, a transfer from Irvine, also is 6-3 and is batting .387 with 21 RBIs, and Ben Wylly, recently recovered from shoulder tendinitis, is 3-0 and batting .384 with 20 RBIs.
University's Jordan Scheftz, a sophomore transfer from Tarbut V'Torah, is 10-5 including a complete game Tuesday in the Trojans' 7-1 victory over Rancho Alamitos in the second round. Ian Barwick and Joppi Martin drove in two runs apiece Tuesday.
Beckman's James Kaprielian, among the county's top pitchers, shut out Downey on one hit in the first round and is 9-1.The Patriots' Zack Rivera and Justin Hazard have driven in 28 and 22 runs, respectively.
The Pacific Coast League, impressive enough already, would be even more so if it can go 3 for 3 in Friday's quarterfinals to occupy three of the fourth berths in Tuesday's semifinals.
As Murray said, "This has been a tough league all year."
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
•The Orange County Athletic Directors Association will announce its choices for county boys and girls athletes of the year at its annual spring dinner meeting at Anaheim Convention Center on Tuesday. Its athletes of the year are seniors, selected from the leagues' male and female athletes of the year (also all seniors). We pick male and female athletes of the year, too, but they do not have to be seniors.
•Edison's baseball team is No. 1 in Baseball America's national rankings. JSerra is No. 6, and Mater Dei is No. 20. Edison and Mater Dei remain alive in the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs, and JSerra was eliminated in the second round Tuesday.
•A recent Baseball America draft prediction has JSerra catcher Austin Hedges going to the Boston Red Sox as the No. 20 overall pick in the first round and Edison pitcher Henry Owens going to the Atlanta Braves as the No. 28 overall pick in the first round. The No. 1 pick, as selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates, on that mock draft is former Orange Lutheran pitcher Gerrit Cole, now at UCLA. The draft is June 6-8.
•And right in the middle of the draft is the Orange County All-Star Game, June 7 at Glover Stadium/Dee Fee Field in Anaheim. Sometimes, players who have been drafted, especially the earlier selections, sit out the game on advice of the teams that drafted them or the players' advisors.
•Trinity League baseball programs are having a youth baseball camp at Mater Dei on June 11, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for players ages 8 to 14. The camp is free, but donations will be accepted and those proceeds will go to help defray the medical and physical therapy costs of former Mater Dei pitcher/outfielder Cory Hahn, last year's county and state player of the year who was severely injured during his first weekend of games at Arizona State. Donations for the Hahn family to help them meet the growing expenses can be made at materdei.org/coryhahnfund.
•The CIF-SS has hit the pause button on its search for an assistant commissioner to replace Rob Wigod, who was promoted to commissioner to replace retiring Jim Staunton at the position. Wigod wants to review and examine the office staffing configuration to see if keeping that configuration intact is satisfactory or if any adjustments can be made that would improve the efficiency of the office.
•The Dodgers are having just a little bit of an image problem. So here is something positive, public-relations wise about the Dodgers: When the CIF-SS baseball championships are held there next Thursday and Friday, the Dodgers charge the CIF-SS only $1 per day for stadium use, and parking is free.
•Gates open at 3 p.m. Friday for the CIF-SS Masters Meet, the qualifying meet for the CIF State Track and Field Championships. Field events begin the event, at 4:30 p.m. (admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children 13 and younger and for students with student identification). The top five finishers in each event advance to the state meet, which is June 3 and 4 at Buchanan High in Clovis.
