GAMES
RANKINGS
Catherdral Catholiic shocks St. John Bosco-Bellflower
PLAY BALL: Cathedral Catholic shocks St. John Bosco in playoff action; the brackets
The last team competition in the 2025-26 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) continues play throughout the Golden State Wednesday after a terrific first day of regional diamond action on Tuesday.
The No. 1 baseball team in the nation to start the season, St. John Bosco-Bellflower, coming off a stirring Southern Section Division 1 title, was eliminated Tuesday by eighth seed Cathedral Catholic-San Diego 4-2 in a first-round Southern California regional.
Cathedral Catholic now plays fifth-seed La Mirada, another road victory with a 7-6 win over Liberty-Bakersfield.
The other first-round Division 1 game on Tuesday was yet another road victory, this one for Huntington Beach, a 10-3 winner over Patrick Henry-San Diego.
The lone SoCal D1 quarterfinal game pits Norco (28-5), ranked No. 9 nationally by MaxPreps against visiting Eastlake-Chula Vista (24-7) Wednesday. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.
In Central Catholic’s win over St. John Bosco, the Dons struck for three runs in the fifth to key the win. Ty Daniels had two hits and two RBIs, including a double, while Will Blanton and Hunter Harrington added RBI singles. Winning pitcher Jose Partida went 5.1 innings, struck out four and allowed six hits.
SOCAL BRACKETS
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NORCAL PLAYOFFS
Host and top Division 1 seed De La Salle-Concord (23-4) continued to squeak out wins with a third one-run postseason victory out of four.
Winning pitcher Roman Bartosh allowed one earned run and four hits in six-innings plus with three strikeouts and no walks. Kaleo Jones earned the save and Ben Hayden was 3-for-3 with an RBI. Sam Lakey added an RBI single and freshman Brandon Manivong added a run-scoring double. St. Francis, the West Catholic Athletic League champions, had RBIs from Sione Tulua and Henry Dommer. The Lancers finished 25-5.
De La Salle will now host Valley Christian a 4-0 winner over Bullard-Fresno as the Warriors (21-9) recorded their third straight in the playoffs, this one combined by Rahul Patel and Alex Kim on a three-hitter. First-inning RBIs from Christian Nevarez and Alex Moutzourdis was all the Warriors needed to advance to semifinal play at De La Salle, a rematch of the 2023 NorCal championship game won by the visiting Spartans when they scored six runs in the seventh inning of an 11-8 victory. The way both teams are pitching well. It doesn't figure to be so high scoring.
In another Division 1 quarterfinal, a rematch of the 2024 NorCal D1 title game, visiting Granada-Livermore prevailed again, this time 5-4 with a stunning three-run seventh-inning rally that featured an RBI single from Austin Sheldon and two St. Mary’s errors. Joseph Holt and Jack Badger also had RBI singles, Tyler Palma scored three runs and Jarret Fahnhorst added two hits for the Matadors (20-9) who now travel to third seed Elk Grove (28-6), a 9-8 winner over Soquel. St. Mary’s (27-7) stranded the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh.
The other D1 quarterfinal game saw third-seed Elk Grove pull off a spectacular four-run rally in the bottom of the seventh to defeat stunned and No. 6 Soquel. A five-run uprising in the sixth had given Soquel an 8-0 lead, but Elk Grove stuck for five in the bottom half and four in the seventh. Brayden Ford and a three-run triple, Chase Dyer added a two-run single and Antonio Cuevas and Landon Johnson also had RBIs.
NORCAL BRACKETS
TOP PLAYERS
Among top senior players still playing in both regionals, many who could be drafted next month. Player rankings by prepbaseballreport.com
Rank, position, name, high school, college commitment
1. SS Tyler Spangler, De La Salle, Stanford (injured)
4. OF Jared Grindinger, Huntington Beach, Tennessee
9. OF Anthony Murphy, Corona, LSU
12. SS Trey Ebel, Corona, Texas A&M
23. SS Alex Harrington, Cathedral Catholic, Stanford
33. RHP Graham Schlicht, De La Salle, Stanford
62. RHP Mateo Villanueva, Corona, San Diego State
83. OF Hunter Harrington, Cathedral Catholic, Stanford
98. 3B Dane Cunningham, Huntington Beach, Cal Poly-SLO
102. C Jesiah Andrade, Corona, uncommitted
158. RHP Jacob Oropeza, La Mirada, uncommitted
167. OF Owen Bone, Huntington Beach, Cal Baptist
178. OF Ty Daniels, Cathedral Catholic, Columbia
218. RHP Brandon Kleyman, De La Salle, St. Mary’s College
241. 2B Chase Groves, Elk Grove, California
254. SS Aiden Simpson, Corona, uncommitted
263. OF Tristen Bartlett, Elk Grove, Fresno Pacific
268. OF Landon Johnson, Elk Grove, Fresno Pacific
280. C Justin Torres, La Mirada, uncommitted
283. SS Nathan Choi, Valley Christian, uncommitted
314. RHP Jared Marchbank, Huntington Beach, New Mexico State
329. RHP Landon Cook, De La Salle, Oregon State
Florida-bound pitcher Lilianna Escobar, of JSerra Catholic.
PLAY BALL: The Who's Who of the CIF Southern Section softball championships
One of the nation’s best and certainly largest high school softball tournaments continues Friday with the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section championships.
Some 266 teams in eight 32-team brackets got underway Thursday and continue with more first-round play, including the rugged top Division I which includes Top 25 national squads: No. 8 Murrieta Mesa (25-1), No. 9 Norco (25-2) and No. 17 Fullerton (24-3).
Top seed (in the D1 tournament) Murrieta Mesa opened with a 10-0 win on Thursday and takes on La Habra (21-7), a 3-2 winner over Los Altos, on Saturday.
Norco hosts Marina (19-8) and Fullerton hosts Cypress (16-12) Friday at 3:15 in first-round play.
Other Top 25 teams in California, according to MaxPreps computer rankings, in the D1 tournament are No. 5 JSerra Catholic (20-8), No. 12 Orange Lutheran (19-8), No. 13 King (22-6), No. 15 Oaks Christian (25-3), No. 16 La Mirada (22-4), No. 17 Etiwanda (22-3), No. 20 Chino Hills (20-7), No. 23 Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks (21-3) and No. 24 Riverside Poly (21-7).
Defending champions Norco (D1), Los Alamitos (D2), Marina (D3), Long Beach Poly (D4), St. Bonaventure (D5), University (D6), Rancho Mirage (D7) and Hueneme (D8).
Among Southern Section playoff senior players who have already signed to Top 50 Division 1 college programs (according to On3 Rivals):
Arizona — Lilly Hauser (Murrieta Mesa, pitcher)
Arizona State — Sofia Hernandez (Whittier Christian, infielder), Alyssa Torres (Valley View, catcher)
California — Emoji Lam Sam (Long Beach Poly, infielder),
Florida — Liliana Escobar (JSerra Catholic, pitcher)
Kansas — Jocelyn Alatorre (El Modena, outfielder)
Kentucky — Cheri Thompson (King, infielder)
Michigan — Mia Valbuena (Marina, pitcher)
Nebraska — Brooke Lebsock (King, catcher)
Notre Dame — Morgan Fitzpatrick (Los Alamitos, infielder)
Oklahoma — Ki’ele Ho-Ching (Long Beach Poly, infielder), Malaya Majam-Finch (Fullerton, pitcher).
Oklahoma State — Peyton May (Norco, pitcher)
Ole Miss — Charli Calas (Linfield Christian, infielder), Madelyn Armendariz (Orange Lutheran, infielder)
Oregon — Kyle Tafua (El Modena, catcher)
Purdue — Taylor Day (Paraclete, outfielder), Kylie Rocha (Vista Murrieta, catcher)
Stanford — Kale’a Tindal (Harvard-Westlake, outfielder)
UCLA — Aubrey McLaughlin (Roosevelt, infielder), Ava Tapia (Upland, catcher)
See complete Southern Section brackets here:
Among from the other nine California sections to get play underway this week are the Central Section, LA City Section, Sac-Joaquin Section, and Northern Section.
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,