La Mirada High offensive lineman Michael Trani has made a verbal commitment to the University of California at Berkeley, Matadores head football coach Mike Moschetti reported via Twitter.
Trani is 6-foot-4, 275 pounds. He had offers from at least 11 other Division I schools.
The saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” apparently applies to the La Mirada High baseball team.
“We have worked too hard to be where we are at because of what we’ve been doing,” coach Kim Brooks said. “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing and see what the dealer deals us.”
Those words came from Brooks after the CIF-SS playoff pairings were released Monday. He said the draw doesn’t matter one way or the other, but for the record, the Suburban League-champion Matadores will play host to either Damien or Oxnard Pacifica on Friday in a Division 2 first-round game.
“Keep playing the way we’re playing,” Brooks said when asked the keys to a long post-season run. “I think we’re playing at a pretty good level right now. You always have to pick it up a bit in the playoffs, but we are playing solid defense, the pitching has been good and we have come through with the bats when we’ve needed to.”
La Mirada (19-10-1) shared the league title with Mayfair, but enters as the league’s No. 1 team because it had the advantage in the tiebreaker.
A total of nine area teams made the playoffs, with five of them to toil in Division 4. Del Rio League co-champion La Serna (16-8-2) on Friday in the first round will play host to either North Torrance or La Habra (14-13), which square off today at La Habra in a wild-card game. In other wild-card games today, El Rancho (15-10) will host Anaheim (18-11), Montebello (14-9) will be at home to Estancia (16-9) and Cal High will take on visiting Barstow.
All games begin at 3:15 p.m. unless there is an agreed upon time change.
Cal High (17-7-1) tied La Serna for the Del Rio League title, but enters as the league’s No. 2 representative because it was 0-2-1 against the Lancers. The Condors are one of seven No. 2 teams in Division 4 having to play a wild-card game. Condors coach Tony Nieto was a bit surprised his team is one of them, but he is taking the philosophical approach.
“It is what it is,” Nieto said. “We’re not going to cry over it. We’ll be ready for it. Since we’re a little hot, maybe it’ll keep us going instead of waiting until Friday to play.”
Cal High has won seven of its past eight. Nieto said he is expecting to start Jimmy Olguin (5-2) on the mound. As for Barstow, the Aztecs (10-9) are the fourth-place team from the Desert Sky League.
In Division 3, St. Paul (16-14) will play host to Rancho Alamitos (11-12) in a wild-card game today. Also today, in Division 5, Cantwell Sacred-Heart (5-16-1) will host Lompoc (11-14-1) in a wild-card game. And Whittier Christian (16-12) will be at Hemet (19-7) on Thursday in the first round.