Weather permitting – and isn’t that always the situation, this time of year? – spring sports get started Saturday.
Spring sports can have their first official CIF-Southern Section competition Saturday.
In baseball, the game of the day Saturday is, or maybe “would be,” Huntington Beach at Aliso Niguel. Look for both to be in the Orange County top 10 when we publish our baseball and softball previews March 14. Both have outstanding pitchers: Noah Davis was 12-0 with a 1.27 ERA last season for Huntington Beach; Aliso pitcher Kyle Molnar, who signed with UCLA, was 10-2 with a 1.81 ERA.
Softball has a few season openers Saturday, but really gets cranking next week. Mission Viejo’s softball team, likely the county’s preseason No. 1 team with plenty of returnees from last year’s CIF-SS Division 2 championship team, plays host to San Clemente on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in a season starter for both.
Coaches and tournament organizers will be checking their cell-phone weather apps from today through May. They do get fairly obsessed with it. Anaheim Lions baseball tournament organizer Chris Pascal has acknowledged scanning the weather through April 1, the final day of the Lions tourney. Talk about long-range forecasts …
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• Mission Viejo’s softball team is No. 1 in national rankings posted by FullCountSoftball.com. Pacifica is No. 11. Mark Tennis of CalHiSports helps put that together, which gives it validity.
• Officials and umpires are needed for spring sports. Officiating keeps you young and supplments your income. Instruction is available. Contact Orange County liaiason of officials Speed Castillo at 714-778-4421.
• The Orange County Athletic Directors Association had its “Athletes With Character” recognition dinner Tuesday at Anaheim Convention Center. The 84 honorees representing 42 county schools are listed at ocvarsity.com and will be in the Register’s OC Varsity section Saturday. Those are 84 reasons to be optimistic about the future.
• Mater Dei’s boys basketball home game, a CIF-Southern Section Open Division semifinal, against Etiwanda has been moved to Tuesday. The game had been scheduled for Saturday, but Mater Dei has a major fundraiser event taking place off campus that day and Etiwanda has a girls basketball playoff game that day, too. Both schools must agree to any such schedule change which also must be approved by the CIF-SS office.
• These schools have teams still playing in the boys and girls basketball playoffs: Corona del Mar, Foothill, Los Alamitos, Mater Dei, Orange Lutheran, Orangewood Academy, Santa Margarita and Tesoro.
• Esperanza has advanced to the CIF-SS boys basketball playoffs for the first time. The Aztecs play at top-seeded Beverly Hills in the 3A semifinals today.
• As expected, the student sections for Esperanza and Servite were large and loud for their teams’ boys basketball playoff game Tuesday. Servite’s great public address announcer, Tim Brundige, might as well have been outside of the gym because he could barely be heard.
• Esperanza’s “6th Man” group was outstanding, but Servite’s “Asylum” is to be commended for these two items: A student dressed as Moses, complete with staff, beard and wig, dramatically parting the black sea of Servite kids; and chanting “vote for Pedro” when an Esperanza player with big, fuzzy hair was at the free-throw line. (It’s a “Napoleon Dynamite” reference, if you’re confused.)
• Esperanza senior center Tyler Thomas is a “victory with honor” guy. The first thing he said after Esperanza’s wild win over Servite, a 62-61 game that the Aztecs did not lead until sophomore Kezie Okpala completed a four-point play with 1.8 seconds left, was praise for Servite’s Friars: “They hustle, they play hard, they don’t let up.” That also is a description of the Aztecs in general and Thomas in particular.
• Two county-team-vs.-county-team matchups in the CIF-Southern Section girls water polo championship games Saturday at Woollett Aquatics Center in Irvine: El Toro vs. San Clemente in the Divsion 2 final at 4 p.m., and Foothill vs. Laguna Beach in the Division 1 game at 7 p.m. Ocean View plays Pasadena Poly in the Division 6 final at 11:30 a.m.
• Admission to the CIF-SS girls water polo championship games Saturday is $10 for adults, $5 for students with valid student identification and for children 13 and younger. All seating is general admission.
• There is a Foothill Technology school that has advanced to the CIF-SS girls water polo finals. Don’t confuse it with the Foothill that, according to the United States Postal Service, is in Santa Ana or, according to residents who made up the name, is in North Tustin. Foothill Technology is in Ventura and plays Hillcrest of Riverside at Woollett in the Division 7 game at 10 a.m. Saturday.
• The CIF-SS Wrestling Masters Meet is today and Saturday at Citizen’s Business Bank in Ontario. Don’t confuse it with the Ontario in Canada. The event today runs from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• The Masters is the qualifying meet for the state championships. The nine place winners in each weight class advance to the CIF State Meet which is March 6 and 7 at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield.
• Admission to the Masters Meet is $15 for adults and $7 for students with valid student identification and for children 13 and younger. Parking is $5.
• Tesoro quarterback Devon Modster, a junior and also a pretty good basketball player, this week got a scholarship offer from Boise State. He has six offers now, with more surely to come.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
