Huntington Beach and Mater Dei travel out of state. Out-of-state teams travel to here.
It’s another week of tournaments in Orange County baseball.
Huntington Beach and Mater Dei are off to North Carolina to play in the National High School Invitational, a USA Baseball event that has grown into one of, if not the, top tournaments in the nation. USABaseball.com has the NHSI schedules and will post results during the tournament that concludes Saturday.
Mater Dei won the championship of the first two NHSIs. San Clemente won it last year.
The Anaheim Lions Tournament begins Saturday. It has 80 teams in it, including eight from Utah, three from Nevada and one from Illinois.
Among the Orange County teams in the Lions tournament are several that were in the Register’s season-opening county top 10 or have been in subsequent top 10s: Aliso Niguel, Capistrano Valley, Dana Hills, Mission Viejo and Tesoro. AnaheimLionsTourney.com has game locations, schedules and more.
The Ryan Lemmon Tournament begins Saturday. Like the Lions tournament, the Lemmon tournament is a fundraiser so paid admission is required. It is played at Windrow Park in Irvine
Among the Lemmon tournament entrants are Marina, which beat Huntington Beach last week, and Crean Lutheran, which is ranked No. 2 in CIF-Southern Section Division 6. It will be interesting to see how Crean Lutheran handles the larger-school competition. RyanLemmonFoundation.com has tournament information.
The National Classic, which is hosted by El Dorado and Esperanza, starts Monday. County teams in that one include county top-10 teams Cypress, El Toro and Servite. Go to national-classic.com for bracket and more information.
Around the horn in Orange County baseball:
• The Santa Ana Elks Tournament begins April 2. Century, which is 6-3 overall and 2-0 in the Orange League, is in that one.
• Aside from the big tournaments, top games this week include Fountain Valley at Los Alamitos in a Sunset League game and Tesoro at Aliso Niguel today in the South Coast League; El Toro at Cypress in a nonleague doubleheader Wednesday that begins at 12:30 p.m.; and on Thursday Misssion Viejo at Trabuco Hills in a Sea View League and two South Coast League matchups – Aliso Niguel at Dana Hills and Capistrano Valley at Tesoro.
• The Boras Classic’s north bracket is underway. The south bracket of the tournament starts March 29. Huntington Beach, Orange Lutheran and host schools JSerra and Mater Dei are in the tournament as are several other teams in the CIF-SS rankings.
• JSerra and Orange Lutheran are 1-2 in the CIF-SS Division 1 top 10. Alios Niguel is No. 5, El Toro is No. 6, Cypress is No. 7 and Servite is No. 9.
• Sage Hill and Crean Lutheran are 1-2, in the CIF-SS Division 6 top 10. Beckman is No. 2 and Corona del Mar is No. 4 in Division 3, which has Woodbridge and Northwood at Nos. 6 and 7, respectively. Mission Viejo is No. 4 in Division 2.
• Sage Hill has won nine in a row since losing the second game of a doubleheader against Windward of Los Angeles on Feb. 27. Last week, Sage Hill freshman pitcher Ashwin Chona struck out 12 over eight innings split over two games. Sage Hill junior Brett Super had 14 strikeouts in a two-hitter against Saddleback Valley Christian.
• Northwood’s Dylan Brine was 5 for 7 with four RBI in two Timberwolves’ wins last week, including their victory over Orange in the championship game of the Newport Elks Tournament’s Costa Mesa Division. Brine was 6 for 11 over Northwood’s five tournament wins.
• Los Alamitos is playing some close games. The Griffins (7-4) have three wins by shutout and three of their four losses were in one-run games.
• JSerra senior pitcher Collin Quinn has allowed no earned runs over 16 innings.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
