TRY AGAIN: Los Alamitos third baseman David Compton and teammates will try to end the Griffins' struggles in the playoffs. They are 0-4 in the postseason since 2000. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER |
Road to championship toughest in baseball
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Baseball notes: Running into a hot pitcher or a bad bounce can derail a season.
Of all the sports in the CIF-Southern Section, baseball might be the most difficult one in which to win a section championship.
Teams have carried great regular-season records into the playoffs, only to lose in the first round. Then there are teams like Canyon last year, which was the No. 3 team in the Century League with a 16-10 record but made it to the Division I championship game, and Katella in 2004, when the Knights were a 13-13 team that was the Empire League's No. 3 and won the Division III title.
“Baseball,” Los Alamitos coach Mark Clabough said, “is not a single-elimination sport.”
A bad bounce here or a tough call there in a seven-inning playoff game can derail an entire season. So can running into a hot opposing pitcher. Clabough has seen it all happen to his teams at Los Alamitos. The Griffins are 0-4 in the playoffs since 2000, four losses by an average margin of 2.7 runs a game.
When the CIF-Southern Section baseball playoff seedings and first-round pairings were released Monday, Los Alamitos was seeded No. 1 in Division I, in which the Griffins will play host to Long Beach Poly in the first round Thursday. The Griffins split a doubleheader with Poly in March.
Los Alamitos is 24-3, including 11 victories over CIF-SS playoff, and takes an 11-game winning streak into the playoffs. Clabough knows that matters little, now.
“It's a cliché,” he said, “but it's true – you've got to take them one game at a time.”
AROUND THE COUNTY
• The only other top-seeded county team is Saddleback Valley Christian, in Division VII. The playoffs start with wild-card round games Tuesday. A county matchup today: Garden Grove at Beckman, in Division III.
• How to decipher the CIF-SS playoff schedule — for example, when it reads “Los Alamitos (Sunset 1, 24-3),” that means Los Alamitos is the Sunset's No. 1 team, with a 24-3 overall record.
• Divisions I, III, V and VII will play first-round games Thursday, with II, IV and VI opening Friday. Second-round games in all divisions are May 20.
• Championship games in Divisions II and III are May 29 at Dodger Stadium, where the I and IV finals are May 30. Finals in V, VI and VII are May 31 at UC Riverside.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
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