Baseball, Softball State Top 20s

Some of the players from Huntington Beach’s 2014 team are shown at left in photo taken from school’s team web site. If the Oilers keep winning, we’ll use the entire photo soon. At right, three players from the Santiago of Corona softball team get a little crazy after they won CIF Southern Section Division I title.

Attention young athletes: To check out info and to sign up for the first-ever Cal-Hi Sports/Gold Medal Excellence All-Sports Speed Camp and All-State Football Combine, CLICK HERE for June 14 event in Tracy or CLICK HERE for June 22 event in Bakersfield.

Check below for this week’s new list of the State Top 20 rankings for baseball and softball.

To read our breakdowns on each State Top 20 team, why some of these rankings moves were made, which teams are on the bubble and for the divisional state rankings for both baseball and softball that are coming soon, you need to be a member of our Gold Club. It’s a great deal at less than $2 per month. Join our team today by CLICKING HERE.

Coach and trainer Chris Asher works with state stat stars and players from state-ranked teams of all ages, helping them to improve their speed, quickness and agility. He is based in Hollywood, also has a role with the UCLA track program and serves athletes within many miles of his location. For more about him, CLICK HERE. For a video about his Gold Medal Excellence training program, CLICK HERE.

NEW BASEBALL STATE
TOP 20 OVERALL RANKINGS

Huntington Beach picked a great week to play some great ball. Not only did the Oilers win the title at the Hard 9 National Classic, but they did it during the same week that four of the five other teams that were in the top five of last week’s State Top 20 all lost.

Coach Benji Madure’s team had to be feeling good after it scored twice in the bottom of the seventh to win a second-round game 2-1 at the Hard 9 National Classic over Santa Margarita of Rancho Santa Margarita. The Oilers then defeated IMG Academy of Florida 5-2 in the semifinals and edged Valley Christian of San Jose 3-2 in the championship. They also enter this week on a 15-game win streak.

Jarrett Anton broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning against the Warriors by ripping an RBI single. Huntington Beach’s MVP for the tourney was junior outfielder Daniel Amaral.

As last week’s teams were being written up for the expanded version of these rankings last Tuesday, we already knew that No. 1 Loyola of Los Angeles had been in a 3-3 tie with Harvard-Westlake of North Hollywood. Later in the week, the two league rivals played again and it was no tie. Harvard-Westlake rolled to a 9-1 victory, although it still was just Loyola’s second loss of the season.

Previous No. 2 Buchanan of Clovis and previous No. 4 St. Francis of Mountain View were both in the field at the Northern California Boras Baseball Classic and neither team won. Buchanan lost twice while St. Francis got to the final and lost 2-1 to Elk Grove (this week’s highest newcomer). Elk Grove will now play Temecula Valley (which got swept in a pair of league games last week by Vista Murrieta, another high-rising newcomer) in the Boras Classic state final.

Previous No. 3 Cathedral Catholic, like Buchanan, also lost twice when it played in the Classic Division of the annual Mike Morrow Lions tourney. Rancho Bernardo ended up winning that tourney title and has now been moved up right behind Huntington Beach to No. 2 in the state.

(Compiled with assistance from Paul Muyskens; updated through games played Saturday, April 19; previous rating in parentheses)

1. (5) Huntington Beach 17-2

20. (15) Archbishop Mitty (San Jose) 16-5

Dropped Out: Previous No. 9 Clovis North (Fresno); No. 11 JSerra (SJ Capistrano); No. 12 Great Oak (Temecula); No. 13 Carlsbad; No. 19 Frontier (Bakersfield); No. 20 Vista.

For features on some of the top teams and players in Northern California, check out our partners at SportStars Magazine. CLICK HERE.

The list of large school teams in California softball that are undefeated dwindled down to just four after last week’s games, and that did have an effect on this week’s State Top 20 rankings.

Previously unbeaten Clovis and El Camino Real of Woodland Hills finally got bit by the loss bug as the Cougars fell to Taft (not the one in Woodland Hills) while the Conquistadors lost to Palo Verde of Las Vegas at a tournament in Las Vegas.

Vacaville, however, remained unbeaten at 18-0-1 and notched a win over defending CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I champ Vintage of Napa. That enabled the Bulldogs to hop Alhambra of Martinez from No. 8 to No. 6 in this week’s pecking order.

California’s big three of Mission Viejo, Amador Valley and Archbishop Mitty, who also are among the top five in the Student Sports FAB 50 national rankings, are the state’s other unbeaten large school teams.

(Compiled with assistance from Paul Muyskens; updated through games played Saturday, April 19; previous rating in parentheses)

1. (1) Mission Viejo 15-0

20. (20) Granada (Livermore) 12-2

Dropped Out: Previous No. 14 El Camino Real (Woodland Hills); No. 17 Norco.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports