It’s not just the biggest, but it’s perhaps the very best high school baseball tournament in the land.
Some might suggest it’s not even close.
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section baseball championships, got underway Tuesday, is truly the motherlode when it comes to volume — 272 teams across nine divisions — quality and history.
It’s hard to fathom any region in America topping it. Certainly not among California’s nine other sections.
Afterall, upward of 75 active Major Leaguers played in the Southern Section playoffs, including Freddie Freeman (El Modena High School), Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran), Shane Bieber (Laguna Hills), Christian Yelich (Westlake), Nolan Arenado and Matt Chapman (El Toro), Giancarlo Stanton and Hunter Greene (Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks), and Lucas Giolito, Max Fried, Jack Flaherty and Pete Crow-Armstrong (Harvard-Westlake).
Among these MLB Hall of Famers — George Brett (El Segundo), Rollie Fingers (Upland), Tony Gwynn (Long Beach Poly), Walter Johnson (Fullerton), Jackie Robinson (John Muir), Eddie Matthews (Santa Barbara) and Duke Snyder (Compton) — all were products of the Southern Section.
In the here and now, in the 16-team Division 1 alone, four of the top 14 teams in the current MaxPreps national computer rankings will compete for a title, which concludes May 30 at Cal State Fullerton.
Those four squads are No. 7 St. John Bosco (22-5), No. 8 Orange Lutheran (23-5), No. 9 Harvard-Westlake (No. 9) and Norco (No. 14).
Other national top 100 teams in the Division 1 tourney are No. 42 Sierra Canyon (23-5), No. 45 Corona (20-6), No. 55 Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks (20-8), No. 57 Ayala (23-2), No. 58 Temecula Valley (24-4) and No. 64 Cypress (21-7).
Those national rankings don’t coincide with how the teams are seeded: No. 1 Norco, No. 2 Harvard-Westlake, No. 3 Sierra Canyon and No. 4 Orange Lutheran.
Among the other top 100 squads, Corona is seeded No. 5, St. John Bosco is No. 6, Temecula Valley is No. 7, Notre Dame is No. 8, Ayala is No. 9 and Cypress is No. 11.
SEE ENTIRE DIVISION 1 BRACKET
Making all these teams so formidable is the elite talent, among these seniors who are top 500 national prospects, according to Prep Baseball Report.
* St. John Bosco: No. 25 James Clark (shortstop, Duke commit), No. 83 Julian Garcia (pitcher, Long Beach State), No. 140 Jaden Jackson (outfielder, UCLA), No. 490 Miles Clark (outfielder, Duke).
* Orange Lutheran: No. 82 Gary Morse (pitcher, Tennessee), No. 93 CJ Weinstein (shortstop, LSU), No. 100 Cooper Sides (pitcher, LSU), No. 27 Eric Zdunek (outfielder, Notre Dame), No. 332 Hamilton Friedberg (outfielder, UCLA) and No. 423 Brady Murrietta (catcher, Texas).
* Harvard-Westlake: No. 22 James Tronstein (outfielder, Vanderbilt).
* Corona: No. 23 Trey Ebel (shortstop, Texas A&M), No. 38 Anthony Murphy (outfielder, Louisiana State).
* Ayala: No. 373 Caleb Trugman (pitcher, UC Santa Barbara).
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Among other top 500 nationally-ranked seniors within the other eight divisions:
* No. 12 Jared Grindlinger (Huntington Beach, pitcher, Tennessee)
* No. 13 Blake Bowen (JSerra Catholic, outfielder, Oregon State)
* No. 30 Logan Schmidt (Ganesha, pitcher, LSU)
* No. 96 Brody Schumaker (Santa Margarita, shortstop, TCU)
* No. 137 Carson Sheffer (Oaks Christian, catcher, Oklahoma State)
* No. 187 Dustin Dunwoody (Royal, pitcher, Arizona)
* No. 190 Taytum Reeves (Vista Murrieta, catcher, Texas Tech)
* No. 204 Isaiah Hearn (Chaminade, outfielder, Oregon)
* No. 217 Jake Ourique (Gahr, pitcher, Oregon)
* No. 253 Colten Rainer (Royal, pitcher, UCLA)
* No. 256 Declan Fitzgerald (Fullerton Union, pitcher, Arizona State)
* No. 266 Braden Oliver (Agoura, shortstop, UC Irvine)
* No. 321 Vincent DeMarco (Woodbridge, pitcher, St. Mary’s)
* No. 371 Warren Gravely IV (Santa Margarita, catcher, Notre Dame)
* No. 372 Andres Gonzalez (Gahr, shortstop, USC)
* No. 373 Caleb Trugman (Ayala, pitcher, UCSB)
* No. 402 Kai’nalu Van Scoyoc (Palos Verdes, shortstop, USC)
* No. 484 Robby Zimmerman (Redondo Union, pitcher, UCLA)
* No. 492 Ty Diaz (West Ranch, shortstop, Cal State Fullerton).
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The other brackets with starting days
DIVISION 2 (Thursday)
DIVISION 3 (Friday)
DIVISION 4 (Thursday)
DIVISION 5 (Friday)
DIVISION 6 (Thursday)
DIVISION 7 (Friday)
DIVISION 8 (Thursday)
DIVISION 9 (Friday)
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Defending champions are: St. John Bosco (D1), West Ranch (D2), Glendora (D3), Ganesha (D4), Elsinore (D5), Estancia (D6), Mary Star of the Sea (D7), Fillmore (D8) and Nuview Bridge (D9).
About VYPE: Is a high school and youth sports media network based in Houston Texas, promoting and celebrating young athletes, the sports they play, the coaches who mentor them and the fans who cheer them on. The 18-year organization has provided vibrant, in-depth digital images and print stories primarily to the Texas and South region but is branching out, making waves and building relationships throughout the country, starting this month in the Golden State of California.
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About the author: Born in Hollywood, raised in Santa Barbara and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mitch Stephens has been a high school sports journalist in California since 1984, the year LeBron James was born. His newspaper days began at the Contra Costa Times and Bay Area News Group chains, expanded to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001 — where he still spreads the prep sports gospel — with full time national writing, reporting and column gigs at MaxPreps (2007 to 2022) and SBLive/High Schools on SI (2022 to present). Among his most treasured feature subjects as preps were Derrick Henry, Paige Bueckers, Patrick Mahomes, Sabrina Ionescu, Jeremy Lin, Aaron Gordon and Kiki Rice.
