Head coach Eric Borba and leading player Matthew Polk show off some hardware after Orange Lutheran won the JSerra Classic tourney several weeks ago. Photo: @olubaseball / Twitter.com.
In a week in which it’s announced there will be CIF regional playoffs held beyond the CIF section playoffs for the first time since 1922, Thousand Oaks and Ayala stay in the top two positions. Buchanan, Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita all move up as previous No. 3 Rancho Bernardo is now holding on in the CIF San Diego Section with Grossmont (El Cajon) coming on strong. Harvard-Westlake, JSerra and St. Augustine of San Diego also all make major moves. One of this week’s newcomers, meanwhile, is 15-0 Arroyo Grande.
FOR ARCHIVES OF OUR FINAL STATE BASEBALL RANKINGS GOING BACK TO 1980s, CLICK HERE.
FOR UP-TO-DATE STATE TEAM & INDIVIDUAL BASEBALL RECORDS (GOLD CLUB), CLICK HERE.
Note: This is a Gold Club post on CalHiSports.com. After the preseason, all weekly and final state rankings are available only to our Gold Club members. To check out getting a Gold Club membership to see all of those rankings plus all of our updated state baseball record lists, totally authentic historical features, and more, CLICK HERE.
Note About CIF Regional Playoffs: It was announced last week that the CIF will be hosting a one-week Southern California regional playoff for baseball that will be held from June 19 to June 26. This was the year, remember, that the CIF was going to have both NorCal and SoCal regionals in baseball and then CIF state finals in several divisions. There has not been baseball playoffs in California ever beyond the CIF section levels since 1922. Even though NorCal regional playoffs aren’t happening, this is still a big deal that SoCal regionals are taking place. We don’t know, of course, which schools will opt out of going on beyond the section playoffs and we don’t know how many players will be skipping out on the rest of this strange, later than usual high school season to concentrate only on other events. Players chosen in the MLB Draft most likely will all be gone and not part of their high school teams. As with everything else COVID-19 related, we will just have to wait and see. For the record, the CIF sections that will be advancing teams into the SoCal regional playoffs will be the Southern, San Diego, L.A. City and Central Sections. In normal years in other sports, Central Section teams can be placed by the CIF into either the NorCal or SoCal regional brackets.
