New Baseball State Top 20

Oaks Christian pitcher Phil Bickford is one of the highest ranked prospects in Southern California. His team moved up to No. 6 in this week’s state rankings. Photo Student Sports.

Note: For a free look at this week’s Inside the Baseball State Top 20, which normally will be content for Gold Club members, including more analysis, more player recognition, more team writeups and a closer look at the toughest teams to rank, CLICK HERE.

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Here are this week’s rankings (after games of Saturday, May 4; previous ranking in parentheses; Monday games of this week not included):

1. (1) Mater Dei (Santa Ana) 22-2
Despite having their win streak end at 22 games, the Monarchs hold on to the top spot after splitting a pair of games against No. 16 Lutheran of Orange.

2. (4) Granada (Livermore) 20-0
Vince Fernandez went 3-for-4 with a home run and seven runs batted in during a 15-0 win over Amador Valley of Pleasanton.

3. (6) Fountain Valley 23-2
With two wins over Edison of Huntington Beach, the Barons clinched their first Sunset League championship since 2002.

4. (2) St. Francis (Mountain View) 24-3
It was a tough week for the Lancers as they lost to No. 10 Bellarmine of San Jose and Valley Christian of San Jose to drop two spots from what was a pretty solid No. 2 spot in the state.

5. (3) Harvard-Westlake (North Hollywood) 21-4
Splitting a pair of games against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, the Wolverines fall two spots right along with St. Francis.

6. (8) Oaks Christian (Westlake Village) 22-3-1
The Lions won twice last week but don’t have the strength of schedule or will be in a strong enough playoff division to be higher yet than either St. Francis or Harvard-Westlake.

7. (9) Turlock 24-1
Nick Voumard allowed just two hits and struck out nine during a 2-0 win over Golden Valley of Merced. The Bulldogs then made it 24 in a row with a 3-1 win over Atwater.

8. (10) Serra (San Mateo) 22-5
Paul Murray drove in a team-high five runs last week as the Padres scored nine runs in their wins over Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco and Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco.

9. (11) Clovis North (Fresno) 23-5
In preparation for two games this week against No. 17 Buchanan of Clovis, the Broncos picked up two shutout wins over Central of Fresno last week.

10. (15) Bellarmine (San Jose) 21-6
Not only did the Bells shutout No. 4 St. Francis of Mountain View but they followed that up with a 4-0 win over Archbishop Riordan of San Francisco to end the regular season.

11. (12) Bonita (La Verne) 23-3-1
Bouncing back from their loss to No. 6 Oaks Christian, the Bearcats picked up two wins last week against Walnut.

12. (7) Rancho Bernardo (San Diego) 22-4
The Broncos extended their winning streak to 13 games with a 9-0 win over Westview of San Diego before having the week end with a 6-4 loss against the same team.

13. (14) Carlsbad 21-4
El Camino of Oceanside was held to just three total hits as the Lancers posted wins of 6-0 and 6-1.

14. (16) Elk Grove 21-4
Scoring 13 runs in both of their wins against Laguna Creek, the Thundering Herd also avenged an earlier loss with a 12-2 win over Davis.

15. (17) Canyon (Anaheim) 20-5
By nearly identical scores, the Comanches defeated Villa Park by 11-4 and 9-4. They finish Century League play this week with two games against Foothill of Santa Ana.

16. (18) Lutheran (Orange) 17-7
The Lancers ended Mater Dei’s 22-game winning streak 4-3, but lost to the Monarchs 2-1 earlier in the week.

17. (5) Buchanan (Clovis) 23-4-1
Not only did the Bears split a pair of one-run games against Clovis but they suffered a second loss last week to Clayton Valley of Concord at the Dave Stewart/Oakland A’s Showdown at the O.Co Coliseum.

18. (19) Casa Grande (Petaluma) 21-1
Shutout wins over Santa Rosa and Rancho Cotate of Rohnert Park has the Gauchos’ winning streak up to 21 games with two games remaining in the regular season.

19. (NR) El Toro (Lake Forest) 18-6
Jonah Arenado of the Chargers has been almost as hot as older brother Nolan, now starring for the Colorado Rockies. They also has two shutout wins last week.

20. (NR) Grossmont (La Mesa) 20-6
Moving up in the CIF San Diego Section pecking order, the Foohillers had two wins over West Hills of Santee before a win over Valhalla of El Cajon.

Teams That Dropped Out
Previous No. 13. Lincoln (Stockton); No. 20. San Dieguito (Encinitas).

Teams on the Bubble
There are 32 teams listed. They can be seen as a new post on the new CalHiSports.com baseball message board. CLICK HERE.

Mark Tennis contributed to this report.

Paul Muyskens is an assistant editor of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at Paul_Muyskens@yahoo.com. He also tweets from events on our Twitter account: @CalHiSports