Woodbridge's long path reaches title game

IRVINE – Make no mistake about it: Playing in its first CIF championship game Thursday is a big deal to the Woodbridge baseball team.

The school will provide rooter buses to get students to Dodger Stadium, where the Warriors (19-11) will take on Pacific Coast League rival Beckman (25-5) for the CIF-SS Division 3 title at 4:30 p.m. And the band will come out to send the team off with a song.

But the part that sent up the loudest hoots and hollers from the players involved something a little more tangible.

When Warriors coach Tim Murray announced that the school principal has agreed to buy the team Togo's sandwiches for lunch, for a moment, it seemed like the players had already won.

"We understand that this is a big deal for this school and this is a big deal for us and our program," senior co-captain Brandon Horth said Wednesday. "We've wanted this since we were freshman. It's crazy that it's all coming true."

There are several reasons Horth, or anybody else might call the Warriors' berth in the title game "crazy." When Horth was a freshman, Murray was in his first year as coach, and the team finished 5-21.

"Woodbridge has really been a school that has had a lot of different baseball coaches," Murray said. "I came here four years ago with the idea that we were going to win a CIF championship.

"That was something I set as one of the goals. And that first year, a lot of people were saying that wasn't going to happen."

Co-captain Ben Wylly was a freshman on that 5-21 team, and he said that some of the upperclassmen had trouble adjusting to Murray's style. Even Murray conceded that so many losses forced him to question some of his methods.

But the coaches kept at it, and the results followed. The Warriors managed a wild-card playoff berth last season before making a first-round exit in a loss to Cypress.

Riding its 2010 success, Woodbridge checked in at No. 3 in the CIF-SS preseason poll in Division 3 – one notch ahead Beckman.

With a tough nonleague schedule, the Warriors opened the season 4-7. But Murray wasn't worried.

"We play Division 1 teams," he said, "and we take our lumps."

As soon as the Warriors figured out their new league and got Wylly back from shoulder tendonitis, the team went on a tear. Woodbridge is 15-4 since its 4-7 start, and the Warriors have won eight in a row. Under mild pressure to win their final four regular-season games to secure a spot in the playoffs, the Warriors responded with poise.

So finally, four years later, Murray had righted the ship.

"The first year it was a lot of questions," he said. "'Why are we doing this drill?' Now it's a lot of answers."

Of course, Beckman is the one team Woodbridge has struggled against at all points during the season. The two squads are new league rivals, and they will play Thursday for the fifth time this season.

The Warriors are only 1-3 against the league-champion Patriots – the single victory coming against a pitcher who, according to Horth, is not a Beckman ace.

But Horth, Wylly, and senior Brennan Leitao each said that there is no team they would rather face.

"We've been beaten up by them all year, and this is our chance to get them back," Horth said. "This is the game that counts."

"One and three?" Leitao added. "I don't care. We're trying to be 1-0 tomorrow."

Beckman will see Wylly pitch for the first time this season, but the two-sport letterman said he's not nervous.

"Trust me, I've air-balled enough free throws to know what pressure feels like," Wylly joked.

Each player agreed that Woodbridge is a different and a better team than earlier in the season. Horth estimated that his team averaged three errors per game during the regular season, but has committed "one or maybe two" during the playoffs.

The day before their big game, the team was as loose as ever, and didn't change a thing. They ran the same fielding drill that helped them cut the errors, and they were enjoying their little bit of the limelight.

After all, free sandwiches don't happen every day.

"This is my fifth varsity season between baseball and basketball, and there's never been anything like this," Wylly said. "It's kind of surreal. ... It's a pretty big turnaround."