Baseball: State Top 20 Update

College Park, Granite Hills, Temecula Valley and Rancho Bernardo will round out the top five as a zany series of section playoff upsets concludes another great season of prep baseball across the state.

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For more on Clovis being named State Team of the Year, CLICK HERE.

Santa Margarita winning the CIF Southern Section Division I title last Friday night at Dodger Stadium with a 3-1 triumph over Foothill of Tustin showed just how competitive and tough it can be to win that championship.

The Eagles entered the playoffs at just 16-10-1 and in the final met a Foothill squad that also had 10 losses but got to the big show with playoff wins over higher-ranked teams Agoura, Huntington Beach and JSerra of Rancho Santa Margarita.

So what to do about Santa Margarita in the final state rankings? The strength of schedule is obvious but the 10 losses have to count as well. For our rankings, the Eagles check in at No. 7, in front of CIF North Coast Section champ De La Salle but behind CIFSS D2 champ Temecula Valley. We have Temecula higher for having a better record, for winning the D2 title one year after getting to the D2 final and for winning the SoCal Boras Classic title, which included a lot of CIFSS Division I teams as well.

Here is a look at the list of the first 20 teams in this year’s final state rankings, which will be expanded to 40 teams in depth later this week:

(Compiled with assistance from Paul Muyskens; updated through games played Saturday, June 6; previous rating in parentheses)

1. (2) Clovis 33-5

Dropped Out: Previous No. 15 Chatsworth; No. 17 Palm Desert; No. 19 Trabuco Hills (Mission Viejo); No. 20 La Costa Canyon (Carlsbad).

For corrections or comments, email markjtennis@gmail.com.