New Baseball State Top 20

Sophomore David Barela’s shutouts of Redlands and Cajon have helped propel Redlands East Valley into this week’s state top 20. Photo courtesy Redlands East Valley High School.

Redlands East Valley is this week’s highest newcomer. Bellarmine, meanwhile, bumps arch-rival St. Francis from the top five. The No. 5 Bells, though, will be hard-pressed to move up much further with No. 1 Mater Dei, No. 2 Granada of Livermore, No. 3 Harvard-Westlake and No. 4 Oaks Christian all looking very strong.

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Here are this week’s rankings (after games of Saturday, May 11; previous ranking in parentheses; Monday games of this week not included):

1. (1) Mater Dei (Santa Ana) 24-2
Aaron Cross notched a complete game shutout while Ryan McMahon drove in the game’s only runs in a 2-0 win over JSerra Catholic of San Juan Capistrano that ended the team’s regular season.

2. (2) Granada (Livermore) 21-1
The Matadors’ undefeated season came to an end last week with a 5-0 loss to California of San Ramon, but they did defeat the Grizzlies earlier this season and they bounced back to end the week with an 8-4 win on the road against De La Salle of Concord.

3. (5) Harvard-Westlake (North Hollywood) 23-4
Head coach Matt LaCour’s Wolverines will enter the postseason as co-champs of the Mission League as they won a pair of games last week against St. Francis of La Canada to finish tied for first with Loyola of Los Angeles.

4. (6) Oaks Christian (Westlake Village) 24-3-1
Since their loss to No. 1 Mater Dei of Santa Ana, the Lions have won 12 straight and the last four have all come in shutout performances .

5. (10) Bellarmine (San Jose) 24-6
For the second week in a row, the Bells defeated previous No. 4 St. Francis of Mountain View and now they have to be ranked higher. They also have avenged two earlier losses to No. 10 Serra of San Mateo by winning the West Catholic Athletic League championship.

6. (4) St. Francis (Mountain View) 25-4
They aren’t losing to bad teams but the fact they are now losing games has caused the Lancers to fall out of the top five as they suffered a loss to No. 5 Bellarmine of San Jose for the second week in a row.

7. (7) Turlock 25-1
Tyler Murphy drove in a game-high three runs as the Bulldogs scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to earn a 9-4 win over Pitman of Turlock in their lone game last week to end the regular season. They’ll take a 25-game win streak into the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs.

8. (11) Bonita (La Verne) 25-3-1
With the Hacienda League championship on the line, the Bearcats defeated a very good team from Diamond Bar 4-1 and 1-0. Senior Sam Stavang pitched a no-hitter in the regular season finale.

9. (12) Rancho Bernardo (San Diego) 24-4
After suffering their first loss in Palomar League play last week to Westview of San Diego, the Broncos defeated Poway twice to clinch the league championship.

10. (8) Serra (San Mateo) 24-6
Wins over Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco and Valley Christian of San Jose helped the Padres reach the WCAL finals before they were unable to beat No. 5 Bellarmine of San Jose after going 2-0 against the Bells previously.

11. (3) Fountain Valley 23-4
Despite finishing a game ahead of Marina of Huntington Beach for the Sunset League championship, the Barons can’t be happy as they lost twice last week to the Vikings, which caused a big drop in the rankings this week.

12. (15) Canyon (Anaheim) 22-5
With a pair of 7-3 wins over Foothill of Tustin last week, the Comanches finished the regular season as the Century League champions. They finished one game up on El Dorado of Placentia and enter the CIFSS Division I playoffs on a six-game win streak.

13. (9) Clovis North (Fresno) 24-6
Despite finishing second in the Tri-River Athletic League behind No. 17 Buchanan of Clovis they did win two of three games against the Bears this season including the first game last week to force a winner take all regular season finale that they lost by a 6-1 final score.

14. (13) Carlsbad 23-5
Two wins over La Costa Canyon of Carlsbad extended the Lancers’ winning streak to 14 games before they lost the final game of the three game series last week to the Mavericks.

15. (19) El Toro (Lake Forest) 21-6
Winners of six straight, the Chargers have won their last five without allowing a run, including triumphs last week over Dana Hills of Dana Point (6-0) and San Clemente (7-0). Jonah Arenado drove in three runs while Ryan Kayoda had 10 strikeouts in the win over the Tritons.

16. (16) Lutheran (Orange) 19-7
There was no letting down for the Lancers last week after defeating No. 1 Mater Dei of Santa Ana the week before as they swept a pair of games against St. John Bosco of Bellflower.

17. (17) Buchanan (Clovis) 25-5-1
After losing for the second time this season to No. 13 Clovis North of Fresno, the Bears were able to win the regular season finale against the Broncos as Jack Wheeless allowed just two hits in the 6-1 win that clinched the Tri-River Athletic Conference championship.

18. (NR) Redlands East Valley (Redlands) 22-4-1
The first open spot for a newcomer this week goes to the Wildcats, who have two wins over a Redlands team that owns a win over No. 19 Clovis. They also have secured the top seed for the CIFSS Division II playoffs.

19. (NR) Clovis 20-8
There were several teams in the running for this position as well, but Clovis has played well enough to post wins over both Clovis North and Buchanan during the season and also owns a head-to-head win over Davis, the No. 1 ranked team in the Sacramento area.

20. (NR) Davis 21-6
Getting the bump to the No. 1 spot in the Sacramento area is the Blue Devils after they beat previous area leader Elk Grove for the second time this season to capture the Delta Valley League title.

Teams That Dropped Out
Previous No. 14 Elk Grove; No. 18 Casa Grande (Petaluma); No. 20 Grossmont (La Mesa).

Teams on the Bubble
There are 31 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