Players from new No. 1 De La Salle stop for photo before playing in recent game. Spartans may end 28-1 with four straight section titles. Photo: DLS Baseball / Prep2Prep.com.
After previous No. 1 Orange Lutheran was stunned by a three-run seventh-inning rally in a loss to Harvard-Westlake in the CIF Southern Section D1 quarterfinals, a new No. 1 needed to be declared for this week. Go inside to see all of our reasons why the new No. 1 is De La Salle of Concord. The CIFSS D1 champion will be decided by next weekend but it will be one more week after that for most other sections. This week’s rankings also were impacted by previous No. 8 Buchanan losing the in the CIF Central Section playoffs.
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(Previous ranking listed in parentheses)
(Through reported results of Saturday, May 11)
(Results from any games played on Monday, May 6 or later not included)
*Indicates season complete.
(Thanks to correspondents Chuck Nan for Orange County, Daniel Poulter for Northern California & Bill Hutton for CIF Central Coast Section for providing writeups & information)
1. (2) De La Salle (Concord) 25-1
This week’s rankings were not easy to do at the very top. On one hand, we have a De La Salle squad that has just one loss by one run that could be the best team the school has ever had. This also is a program that has been No. 2 in final state rankings twice, No. 3 on another occasion and could be winning its fourth straight CIF North Coast Section Division I title. We also have a couple of teams from the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs that if they both win out — Cypress and Harvard-Westlake — would be more than solid final No. 1 teams as well. Sorry, but we wouldn’t pick a team with six losses ahead of a possible 28-1 team at De La Salle in just about any scenario. Cypress was the highest ranked of the CIFSS D1 teams last week, but after going through all of our criteria and our history of doing these rankings for 40 years we are not hopping the Centurions up to the top. De La Salle is being put into the top spot and also according to our history of doing rankings would not be dropped from No. 1 unless the Spartans lose in the playoffs. De La Salle wrapped up its regular season with two strong showings over two quality North Coast Section squads. The Spartans breezed past Monte Vista (Danville) 12-1, with Eric Reyzelman and Dylan White combining for a four hitter. State-ranked Amador Valley was within striking distance of De La Salle in the second game of the week that decided that East Bay Athletic League playoff title,, but a five run bottom of the sixth inning for the Spartans ended all chance for the upset. De La Salle is the No. 1 seed for D1 in the NCS and squares off against James Logan of Union City in the first round.
