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Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Estancia baseball back in CIF final after another one-run victory
Everything has fallen into place at the best moment imaginable for Estancia's baseball team, which heads into this weekend's CIF Southern Section finals on a six-game roll and a second title in four seasons in sight. The Eagles, a most uncertain prospect back in February, have emerged from a roller coaster campaign that hadn't gone as desired before the playoffs began two Fridays ago steeled by missed opportunities, fused as championship teams should be, and filled with expectation. Estancia (19-13) rode Nico Viramontes' outside fastball and a growing knack for two-out heroics in Tuesday afternoon's semifinal victory over Rancho Mirage, pulling out another tense 4-3 triumph to set up Saturday's 1 p.m. Division 6 title-game showdown with Marshall (20-6-1) at Cal State Fullerton's Goodwin Field. Viramontes (9-0) surrendered two hits and one unearned run while working out of several jams over six innings and the Eagles twice responded quickly to the visitors' forays to go ahead. 'Our stats are not pretty,' head coach Nate Goellrich said. 'Our batting average is the second-worst batting average in my [14-year] history here. Our team ERA is the second-worst. But we've come together as a group. The chemistry works. We respond when we're down, and all that is is heart. And the ability to understand that they can do it and have faith in themselves, have faith in each other. That's the big thing. 'They've come together at the right time. And that's what you need in the playoffs is that. And can't ask for anything else out of the guys.' Estancia turned a two-run deficit into a 3-2 advantage behind back-to-back run-scoring doubles from Sawyer Atkinson and Viramontes, then Vaughn McCrea's two-out RBI single in the the third. The Eagles answered the Rattlers' audacious tying run in the fifth with a two-out rally in the bottom half of the inning, bringing home Sean Sweeney on Carlos Hauser's single to right field. McCrea got the save with the tying run at third on Jacob Ramirez's racing, diving catch on a dipping fly to shallow left field. 'I'm at a loss of words right now,' said Viramontes, who fell behind after an error gifted Rancho Mirage (18-13) two runs in the top of the third but twice escaped innings unscathed with runners in scoring position. 'We've always dreamed for this, and we worked really hard for it, so it's a great feeling.' This run, one marked by a first-round stand as Alhambra rallied and last week's down-to-the-last-out, extra-inning quarterfinal thriller with Pacifica Christian, followed back-to-back, one-run, late-inning losses a month ago to Coast League champion Century, the first with a piece of the league title within reach. That was, Atkinson noted, 'not the outcome we wanted.' 'It made us want to win this even more,' Viramontes said. 'That's what we're doing right now, showing that we deserve to win this.' Said Atkinson: 'I don't think any of us thought it would go this far. But here we are.' It came down to a series of battles with Rattlers talisman Kobee Finnikin, their only All-CIF honoree after reaching the semifinals last year. He went two for three, was on base four times, scored twice and stole three bases: second, third and home in succession, the last 90 feet for a sixth-inning tie with a two-out dart as Atkinson, Estancia's catcher, tossed the ball back to Viramontes. The Eagles twice duped Finnikin into taking off early, both times from second base, with Viramontes in the first inning and McCrea in the seventh delaying their motions and catching the Cal Baptist-bound shortstop on the basepath. Rancho Mirage had two on with one out the second time. 'We knew coming in their leadoff guy was a little bit undisciplined on the bases,' Goellrich said. 'We knew we could take advantage of that. And that was huge for us. Two spaghetti moves, picking him off, taking that away. That's a lot of their offense.' Rattlers head coach David Shaw had no regrets. 'We live with his energy and his reads,' he said. 'It's something we will definitely learn from, but I don't ever second-guess that kid. He's our fire.' Estancia's two-out acumen was pivotal. The Eagles put seven runners on base after the second out, five into scoring position, and, with McCrea's and Hauser's singles, brought two of them home. 'It's something coaches pounded in on us, working with two outs, finding a way on,' Atkinson said. 'That's been a thing all year. We just keep finding our way on with two outs, and that's what makes our team. That's what gets us the wins, you know?' Goellrich said he's 'pretty sure about 80% our runs in the playoffs are with two outs.' 'That just shows the heart, the character of these guys,' he said. 'We have that next-guy mentality, and they really bought into that philosophy. So an inning's never over.' The Eagles will take that approach into Saturday's final. 'Baseball is the toughest championship to win, right?' Goellrich said. 'We told our guys, even coming into the playoffs, you're here, go out and win. See what happens. And so for us to be there the second time in four years is huge. But we're not satisfied. We'll go out and give us our best shot. And, you know, the goal will be [to go] 1-0. 'Just go 1-0 that day. Doesn't matter how. Doesn't need to be pretty. A win's a win.'
Los Angeles Times
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Estancia baseball walks off against Pacifica Christian, advances to CIF semifinals
Estancia High baseball senior Jake Humphries is the last remaining player on the roster from the Eagles' 2022 CIF championship team. Humphries was a bench guy as a freshman on that squad; his older brother Tyler playing a bigger role. Still, there is something to be said for having that kind of experience when making one last run. When he saw a 2-and-0 hanging curveball in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday, Humphries knew exactly what to do with it. 'You've got runners at the corners,' he said after the game. 'All you've got to do is just poke something, get something to the outfield, allow your team to have a fighting chance really.' Humphries laced a single over the shortstop and into the outfield, scoring junior teammate Sawyer Atkinson from third base and starting a wild celebration on the Estancia baseball diamond. The Eagles had rallied for a 4-3 win over next-door neighbor Pacifica Christian Orange County in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs. Estancia (18-13) will stay at home to face Rancho Mirage in a Division 6 semifinal game on Tuesday. The team graduated a senior-laden squad a year ago, and Humphries is one of just four seniors this year, but Estancia again finds itself in the final four. 'We're not going to rebuild,' said Eagles coach Nate Goellrich, whose team finished second in the Coast League. 'People were saying that around us, but we were just saying that we were retooling all year. So for us to qualify for playoffs and now being in the semifinals, credit to the seniors, credit to the kids for just buying in. Our expectation is that we're going to win, and we've been fortunate to do that so far.' Pacifica Christian (14-12), in just its fourth varsity year, has also gotten used to winning. The Tritons made the Division 8 title game a year ago. They were close to knocking out the Eagles on Friday. The visitors took a 3-0 lead in the third inning, with Taisen Morishita, Blake Hayes and Scout Escobedo all crossing the plate. Morishita scored on a wild pitch, while John Coopman's sacrifice fly and a single to center by Luke Miller plated the other runs. Tritons starting pitcher Jon Stone was cruising, but Estancia answered with a pair of unearned runs in the fourth, as Atkinson and Nico Viramontes both walked to lead off the inning and came around to score. Jon Stone went four innings for Pacifica Christian, allowing just one hit, and he was followed by Josiah Miller and Carter Canada on the mound. 'Josiah hasn't pitched in weeks, and he came out and battled for us,' said first-year Pacifica Christian head coach Beau Amaral, a former Huntington Beach High and UCLA standout who played six seasons in the Cincinnati Reds organization. 'I was really proud of him for that. Carter coming in, he's a freshman. I couldn't be more proud of our guys. It's not the outcome we wanted, but they battled.' Amaral's father Rich went to Estancia before a 10-year career in Major League Baseball. He had his Estancia jersey retired and currently works as a scout for the Baltimore Orioles. 'He couldn't make it today,' Beau Amaral said. 'He's out in North Carolina right now.' Dad's alma mater ended up with the victory. Down to its last out, Estancia evened the score at 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh, with Atkinson's two-out double off the left-field wall scoring Athan Perez. Goellrich said as Atkinson goes, so Estancia's offense goes. 'I thought it was out,' the Eagles junior said of the seventh-inning smash. 'I was seeing the ball well all day long, I just was having trouble sitting back on my back leg. I was kind of lunging forward. The pitcher had some [velocity] on him, so I was just thinking sit back and drive from there.' The clutch hit set the stage for the ninth inning heroics for Estancia. Senior pitcher Vaughn McCrea went eight innings for the Eagles before junior Lincoln Silva got the win in relief, throwing a scoreless ninth inning. Humphries said he's glad Estancia will be back at home Tuesday for the semifinals. 'We grew up our whole life in Costa Mesa, and we didn't transfer out or go to any special school,' he said of himself and his teammates. 'We stayed at our hometown school, and it's really cool to see everyone who watched us from T-ball all the way up just stay in the same environment. I feel like it's just a really cool thing to see the community come together.' Fountain Valley 5, Torrance 2: Senior Logan Hunt pitched five shutout innings for the Barons in Friday's Division 2 playoff quarterfinal game on the road. Tyler Peshke, Drake Robinson and Josh Grack each had a pair of hits for Fountain Valley (18-13), which took a 5-0 lead into the seventh inning. Anthony Zamora and Isaac Lomeli each drove in a run. Fountain Valley will play at Mater Dei in a Division 2 semifinal game Tuesday. The Barons will be attempting to advance to their first CIF title game since 1996. Glendora 2, Costa Mesa 1: The Mustangs' season ended in the quarterfinals of the Division 3 playoffs Friday at Costa Mesa High. Pitchers Troy Simmonds and Will Morales combined to yield no earned runs for Costa Mesa, while Wylan Rottschafer was one for three with a double and run batted in. Golden West League champion Costa Mesa finished the season 24-7, the 24 wins representing a single-season program record.
Los Angeles Times
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Los Amigos softball learning, looking for more success
GARDEN GROVE — Los Amigos reached the CIF Southern Section softball playoffs the past two years after missing out the previous decade, advanced both times, then reeled off eight victories to start this season. It's nice to be winning, of course, and the Lobos treasure their successes — aspire to more and better — but let's not, head coach Jeff Holley suggests, get ahead of ourselves. Los Amigos is not, in any sense, a softball powerhouse, and so when those eight wins were followed by two lopsided losses — the second a 10-0, six-inning Coast League decision Friday afternoon at Santiago — there was disappointment, but no surprise. Los Amigos' old Garden Grove League rivals made it 21 in a row in the series since 2013 — hitting double digits for the 13th time in the past 14 meetings. 'I wanted to get out of here 5-0, 6-0. I would have been really excited by that,' Holley, in his fourth season in charge, said afterward. 'This still wasn't that bad, 10-0 in six innings. They have beaten us by a lot worse.' Holley and his players know where they stand, and there's pride in the strides the Lobos (8-2 overall, 1-2 in the Coast League) have taken since hitting bottom after the pandemic. He stepped in after a winless 2021 campaign, won four games in his first season with what were basically beginners, and has since gone 32-18-1 with three playoff wins and more, they hope, on the horizon. That's not really the point, more so fruits-of-labor stuff: Los Amigos' program, Holley says, is about 'learning the game of softball.' Literally. 'We have people who haven't played before,' he said. 'When they come to us, they're brand new, and so we teach them the game, we teach them to be enthusiastic and have energy and leave everything on the field. And everything else will take care of itself.' Success, he said, is measured by 'getting better every single day.' Every year 'is very rewarding, because you see the growth, especially with players that don't have the background. They're always growing and learning and getting better.' The Lobos have some experience this year, with six seniors who have grown within the program, but not much depth: just 11 players, including junior varsity call-ups, after two starters — senior Ingrid Alvarado and her sister, freshman Angie Cervantes — transferred this week to El Modena after a family move. 'A big loss,' Holley called it. Half the team is 'newcomers that we're going through what we did three years ago with [the seniors],' he said. 'And [the seniors] are staying on them, to say, 'Hey, you can do this. We went through this. You can learn this. You've just got to give it your all.' 'We get girls who have never touched a ball before,' senior first baseman Maria Castillo said. 'Seeing them go from not touching a ball before to simply falling in love with the game is what it's all about.' The experience against stronger programs, such as Santiago's, helps. The Cavaliers (9-3, 3-0) hammered 13 hits behind a nine-for-12, six-run, seven-RBI collaboration from the first three hitters in the lineup and rode senior right-hander Ihilani Berard, who limited Los Amigos to three hits — second- and fourth-inning singles by Alina Mendez and a fifth-inning single by Yvonne Gonzalez — and allowed just one runner past first base. She struck out nine, five on three pitches. It was over, for all intents, in the third, all through the top of Santiago's lineup. Lillian Centeno (three for four) turned a single into a triple when the ball bounced past left fielder Melenny Andrade. Nayelli DeJesus followed with an infield single that Gonzalez, the third baseman, could only knock down, and Marilyn Nuñez homered over the fence in right-center, the first of her three extra-base hits. That might have been it, on a better day, but five errors added up to four unearned runs, three of them with two out as Santiago extended its lead to 6-0 in the fourth, added another pair in the fifth, then put across two more with none out in the sixth to impose the 10-run mercy rule. 'I thought we actually played pretty well,' Holley said. 'In the fourth inning, we got the first two out, we had two easy ground balls to get out of the inning, we don't, and they erupt. And in the fifth inning, it was the same thing, and they explode.' The postseason is within reach. The Lobos figure to battle Savanna (2-12, 1-3) for third place, and they've got the advantage after a 7-5 victory in their March 21 Coast League debut and two more meetings ahead. Three in a row 'would say a lot for us,' senior shortstop Leah Lemusu said, 'just because I know a lot of people doubt us from previous years we didn't win many games. ... It would improve our image, and I think it would be exciting for everyone, too.' The title will go to Santiago, winner of the last three and four of the most recent five Garden Grove League titles, or Anaheim, which captured the last six Orange League championships (with Savanna runner-up the last three). The Colonists (10-1, 2-0), beat Los Amigos, 10-0, in a five-inning game Wednesday. Savanna took both teams the full seven innings. 'This is going to be the hardest year to make the playoffs because the league we're in is the toughest league we've been in,' Holley said. 'It would be an even greater accomplishment to do it this year.' That's the plan. 'We've accomplished so much,' Castillo said. 'And we have even more to accomplish.'
Los Angeles Times
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Los Amigos boys' basketball drops CIF opener to rival Santiago
Los Amigos and Santiago have had countless meetings as longtime league combatants. The rivals squared off for the third time in five weeks on Wednesday night, and while there was little left in their playbooks that the other hadn't seen, it was a marquee game that made the difference for the visiting Cavaliers with their season on the line. Senior forward Jerell Guidry supplied 10 points, 12 rebounds and six steals, as Santiago toppled host Los Amigos 45-42 in a rough-and-tumble first round matchup of the CIF Southern Section Division 4AA boys' basketball playoffs. '[Guidry] was outstanding today, and that was his best game of the year,' Santiago coach Matt Moorhouse said. 'The first time we played Los Amigos, he did not play like that. He did not have those rebounds. The second time, he was a little better, and this time, he showed what he's capable of. We're not winning the game without Jerell.' Santiago (18-11), which lost both games in Coast League play against Los Amigos (15-13), advances to play La Cañada Flintridge Prep (14-9) on Friday at home at 5 p.m. In a game that did not feature a double-digit lead, Santiago used an 8-0 run to produce the biggest lead of the game. Senior guard Jorden De La Mora, who had a game-high 26 points to go with four steals, scored seven consecutive points in that stretch, including a three-pointer that stretched the Cavaliers' advantage to 31-24 three minutes into the second half. 'He's been our guy the whole year, and I knew he was eventually going to come out,' Moorhouse said. 'It doesn't matter if you box-and-one, it doesn't matter if you just tag him. He's going to get his points. He's going to do his thing, and that's what he's done all year. No one's been able to stop him.' Los Amigos furnished its own 7-0 run to get right back in the contest. Junior guard Zion Rodgers finished through contact at the rim and then went coast to coast for a layup in transition. Rich Toledo's three-point play on another fast break opportunity knotted the score at 31-31. Tapasu Lapati scored all five of his points in the latter stages of the third quarter, helping Los Amigos take a 37-35 lead into the fourth quarter. The offense dried up from there for the Lobos, who went scoreless during a critical six-minute juncture. Rodgers broke the drought with a mid-range jumper. After back-to-back empty trips to the free-throw line for Rodgers and Toledo, Philip Steinert found Rodgers for a three from the left wing to cut the deficit to 43-42 with 23 seconds left. De La Mora made a pair of three throws, and when Rodgers kicked the ball out to Sales Connor with the clock winding down, the potential game-tying three-point attempt hit the back iron and stayed out. 'Unselfish, great group of kids,' Los Amigos coach DeAndre Ferguson said of his team. 'They worked hard. I wouldn't trade any of them. The kids are second to none. … They deserve more. … That's life. This game teaches life.' Los Amigos shared the Coast League championship with Savanna (18-8), and the Lobos have now won back-to-back league titles. Santiago was the third-place team in the league. 'From what I've seen from the time I've been here, they look like they look forward to it a lot,' Rodgers, a Lynwood Firebaugh transfer, said of the rivalry with Santiago. 'Every game's a battle. … Everybody, they just came to compete like it's their last game, and I respect it.' CIF Southern Section Division 4AA playoffs Santiago 45, Los Amigos 42 SCORE BY QUARTERS Santiago 8 - 15 - 12 - 10 — 45 Los Amigos 7 - 14 - 16 - 5 — 42 S — De La Mora 26, Guidry 10, Baude 7, Bracamonte 2. 3-pt. goals — De La Mora 2. Fouled out — None. Technicals — None. LA — Rodgers 18, Toledo 9, Lapati 5, Belote 4, Connor 3, Steinert 3. 3-pt. goals — Rodgers 2, Lapati 1, Connor 1, Steinert 1, Toledo 1. Fouled out — None. Technicals — None.
