By Stephen Ramirez
steve.ramirez@langnews.com
@SteveRRamirez on Twitter
You can add Los Altos High School to list of area schools looking for a baseball coach.
Andrew Formano, the Conquerors coach since 2007, resigned Wednesday, citing burn out from the year-long grind of coaching.
He’s the third area coach to leave his position in the past few weeks. Andy Nieto resigned at Bishop Amat last week, and Damien’s Al Leyva was fired earlier this week.
“It’s a little of a burnout, so I felt it was time to take some time off from coaching,” Formano said. “I’d like to focus on my family and some other things. That’s the major reason why.”
Formano built Los Altos into an area top 10 team. He was 121-93-1 in his eight seasons at the Hacienda Heights school. The Conquerors made the CIF-Southern Section playoffs in six out of his eight seasons. They advanced to the quarterfinals in 2009 and 2012.
Los Altos was 13-15 this season.
During his tenure, several Los Altos players advanced to the next level. They include Joe Munoz, who is now playing Single-A for the Arizona Diamondbacks; James Mendez (Cal State Los Angeles); Steven Camberos (Hawaii Pacific); Ronnie Blagg (Valley City State, North Dakota) and Evelio Ahumada (William Penn, Iowa).
“I’m proud of what we accomplished,” Formano said. “We competed every year in our league, and unfortunately we had Bonita ahead of us. But most of those years we had some really good teams during my time.
“We always competed. That’s the legacy I wanted to leave behind. We made a couple of nice runs. We had kids make it to the next level. Munoz is doing well, so I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish.”