Baseball preview: Young team looks ready for long run
Edison looks like best team in Orange County in 2011.
That's not a typo. Edison has so many excellent underclassmen, the Chargers probably are the county's best team this season and next.
Henry Owens is a 6-foot-7 left-handed pitcher who was 9-1 last season. He is a junior.
Eric Snyder, an All-Sunset League outfielder in 2009, is a junior, too. So is Christian Lopes, a junior shortstop who transferred from Valencia of Valencia where he batted .453 with 15 home runs and 33 RBIs, and made All-CIF. There could be as many as three other non-seniors in the starting lineup for Edison.
"This is the best offensive team I've coached," said Edison coach Steve Lambright, who led the Chargers to the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 championship game last season. "We're not as strong pitching-wise as we were last year when we had Henry and Kurt Heyer (All-County first team in '09). But hopefully we can make up for that."
Edison came into the season at No. 1 in calhisports.com's state rankings and at No. 3 in Baseball America's national rankings. Lambright is not quite as convinced about how good Edison will be this season.
"We got all those rankings because of the talent," he said. "I would buy into that if I knew we had two great No. 1 and 2 pitchers. We shall see how it goes."
NATIONAL CLASSIC
The tournament, started in 1989, has a new title sponsor, Diamond Sports, so it now is the Diamond Sports National Classic. The tournament is April 5-8, and again has a strong field.
Edison is in it, as are other teams in the state top 20: No. 3 Mater Dei; No. 7 Crespi of Encino; and No. 17 South Hills of West Covina. Orange Lutheran is in the tournament, as are, as usual, tournament host schools El Dorado and Esperanza.
NOTES
Teams that did not make the preseason county top 10, but were considered: Beckman; El Toro; Foothill; Laguna Hills; Los Alamitos; and San Clemente. ...Capistrano Valley coach Bob Zamora, in his 37th season coaching Capo, has 582 career victories, the most among the county's active coaches. ... The all-time county coaching leader, Dave Demarest, who coached La Quinta to 753 victories, is an assistant coach at Fountain Valley. Ron La Ruffa is back coaching Fountain Valley this year on an interim basis, as former Barons coach Joe MacDonald tends to family health issues. ... Dave Moore is the new coach at El Dorado, taking over for longtime Golden Hawks coach Steve Gullotti who resigned but remains at the school as athletic director. ... Eight La Habra starters played on the school's CIF championship football team. ... Troy catcher Brant Whiting signed with Stanford. He has a 4.48 grade-point average. ... Sonora pitcher/outfielder Jimmy Litchfield was the league player of the year last season, when he was 9-2 and batted .365. ... Garden Grove All-CIF catcher/pitcher Jordan Geiger batted .507 last year with 38 RBIs, and was 7-3. ... New Segerstrom coach Erasmo Ramirez is a former major-league pitcher. ... Foothill pitcher Colin Welmon was 9-2 with a 1.83 ERA last season as a sophomore.
