Area high school teams ready for postseason grind

JP

Raineri and Derryl Trujillo

Sports Writers

LOS ALAMITOS – The 20222023 school year is quickly coming to an end, but not before high school spring sports teams get to continue in the postseason. The spring season consists of track and field, tennis, lacrosse, beach volleyball, boys golf (separate from this article), swimming, and baseball and softball, as teams now get the opportunity to play through the end of the month, in order to be the last team standing. The downfall is you can’t lose. For those that have been in this position before, it’s not the time to let the pressure take over. In fact, the pressure was to get to this point, now it’s time to show out.

The hunt for an elusive CIF Southern Section title begins this week as the Southern Section offices have now released all the pairings for each sport. Starting with softball, the playoffs will commence Tuesday, May 2, with wildcard games and Thursday, May 4, with opening round games.

Softball Playoffs (All games are scheduled for 3:15 p.m. start times, unless otherwise noted.)

Two teams from the Valley News coverage area earned top five rankings in their respective divisions and both will open with home games. Murrieta Mesa, Southwestern League champions for a third consecutive year, finished the year ranked fifth and will open the playoffs at home on Thursday against the winner of a wildcard game between Corona Centennial and South Hills.

Also ranked in their division’s top five is Liberty after winning the Mountain Pass League championship in their first year in a league. The Bison are ranked fifth in the final CIF-SS division five coaches’ poll and will open the playoffs on Thursday against the winner of a wildcard game between Ontario Christian and Shadow Hills at home.

In total, 16 teams qualified for the CIF-SS Ford Softball Championships. Among that number are both of last year’s finalists in Linfield Christian and Elsinore. The Lions were runnersup in Ambassador League play to Aquinas and will open the Division 5 playoffs against Kaiser (Fontana) in a wildcard game on Tuesday. After a second straight league title, Elsinore will open the Division 4 playoffs on Thursday at home against Santa Fe.

Here is a list of the softball league champions from our area: Southwestern - Murrieta Mesa; Mountain Pass - Liberty; Sunbelt - Elsinore; South Valley - Santa Rosa Academy.

Tuesday, May 2: Wildcards

Division 3: Hemet at Diamond Bar.

Division 5: Twentynine Palms at San Jacinto Valley Academy, Ontario Christian at Shadow Hills and Kaiser at Linfield Christian

Thursday, May 4: Round One.

Division 1: South Hills/Corona Centennial wildcard winner at Murrieta Mesa.

Division 2: Vista Murrieta at Don Lugo, Great Oak at Arcadia (moved to 5/3).

Division 4: Paloma Valley at Chino, Fullerton at San Jacinto, Santa Fe at Elsinore.

Division 5: Ontario Christian/

Shadow Hills wildcard winner at Liberty, Kaiser/Linfield Christian wildcard winner at Santa Rosa Academy.

Division 6: Nuview Bridge at Bloomington, Loara/St. Joseph’s Lakewood wildcard winner at Hamilton.

Division 7: Santa Ana Valley at California Lutheran, Public Safety Academy at Tahquitz.

Second round games are on Tuesday, May 9, with the quarterfinals on Thursday, May 11, and semifinals on Saturday, May 13. Championship games are set for Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20, at Irvine’s Deanna Manning Stadium.

Baseball Playoffs (All games are scheduled for 3:15 p.m. start times, unless otherwise noted.)

The playoffs began earlier this week with wildcard games Tuesday and Wednesday; and firstround games getting underway Thursday and Friday. Only one local team got a seeded bid, which comes as quite a surprise with Linfield Christian soaking up the success of their 20-7 season as the Ambassador League runner-up. The Lions take the No. 4 seed in Division 4 and will face Hemet in

Liberty’s ace Andi Clabough helped her softball team win a 2023 Mountain Pass League title and will enter the playoffs ranked fifth in Division 5. They’ll open the playoffs at home against either Shadow Hills or Ontario Christian on Thursday, May 4. Valley News/Action Captures Media Group their first matchup.

League champions from the area consisted of: Back-to-back Southwestern League title holders Vista Murrieta, who will await the winner of a wildcard game between Lakewood and Burroughs to see who they open against in Division 2; Elsinore, who won the Sunbelt League; Tahquitz, the Mountain Pass League winners; as well as Cornerstone Christian (Wildomar), who won the Majestic League; and Lakeside, who won the Inland Valley League.

A total of 254 teams qualified for the seven divisional singleelimination tournaments with the championship finals slated for Friday and Saturday, May 19-20 at Blair Field in Long Beach. Dates/Divisions/Times at that site are still TBA. All games, with the exception of championship games, are scheduled to begin at 3:15 p.m. unless otherwise noted. All championship games from Blair Field will be streamed live by The NFHS Network and Bally Sports.

Division 1

First round - Thursday, May 4 No local teams

Division 2 Wildcard round - Wednesday, May 3

D: Monrovia at Great Oak

First round - Friday, May 5

Temecula Valley at Capistrano Valley Christian Vista Murrieta vs Wildcard “C” winner

Paloma Valley at Tesoro

Division 3

First round - Thursday, May 4

Temescal Canyon at Edison

Serra at Tahquitz

Division 4

First round - Friday, May 5 Burbank at Elsinore Chaparral at Adelanto

Valley View at Citrus Hill

Hemet at Linfield Christian

Division 5

First round - Thursday, May 4 Liberty at Colton

Division 6

First round - Friday, May 5 Wildcard “G” winner G at Lakeside

Temecula Prep at Hesperia

Christian Orange Vista at Riverside Prep

Division 7

Wildcard round - Wednesday, May 3

J: Santa Rosa Academy at Palm Valley P: Hamilton at Loma Linda Academy

First round - Thursday, May 4 Winner G at Cornerstone Chr.

Winner H at Nuview Bridge

Lacrosse Playoffs

The Murrieta Mesa girls lacrosse team hasn’t lost a Southwestern League match in the past three seasons, garnishing a 30-0 record in league play, and have earned the No. 1 seed as the CIF Southern Section released its playoff pairings this past Saturday morning.

Murrieta Mesa is the top-seeded team in the Division 2 girls bracket. The Rams (17-1) also received a first-round bye and will host Yorba Linda (10-5) or Valencia (6-9) in a second-round match Friday.

SPRING from page C-1

Murrieta Mesa was the Division 2 runner-up last season.

The Chaparral girls team was the only other Inland squad to receive a Top 4 seeding. The Pumas (12-5) are the No. 2 seed in the Division 3 bracket but will travel to Dana Hills (10-6) for a first-round match (Wednesday, May 3) after finishing third in the Southwestern League standings.

League champions from the area also include Temecula Valley (boys; Southwestern League), who went undefeated in league play, and Linfield Christian in the Ivy League with their overall undefeated season at 20-0. The six divisional (three girls, three boys) tournament championships started Monday, May 1 with the girls wildcard rounds (in affected divisions), followed by the boys wildcard games and first-round (Division 1) on Tuesday, May 2. All championship games will be played at host school sites with boys and girls finals being

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Outlook

played at Downey High School on Friday and Saturday, May 1213. Divisions/dates/times to be determined.

Boys Lacrosse Playoffs

(Matches scheduled for 3:15 p.m.

Dates, sites and times subject to change.)

Division 2

Thursday’s first-round matches: San Juan Hills at Temecula Valley, Great Oak at Saugus, San Clemente at Vista Murrieta.

Division 3

Thursday’s first-round match: Long Beach Poly at Linfield Christian.

Girls Lacrosse Playoffs

(Matches scheduled for 3:15 p.m. Dates, sites and times subject to change.)

Division 2

Wednesday’s first-round match: JSerra at Vista Murrieta.

Friday’s second-round matches: Yorba Linda or Valencia at Murrieta Mesa.

Division 3

Monday’s wildcard matches: Northwood at Paloma Valley.

Wednesday’s first-round matches: Heritage at Tesoro, Chaparral at Dana Hills.

Girls Beach Volleyball Playoffs

The girls beach volleyball playoffs, in its inaugural championship season, began this week with wildcard contests at designated host sites Tuesday and first round matches in the two divisional single-elimination tournaments conducted at designated host sites on Thursday. While the sport is just gaining momentum in the area, there is no immediate local representation in the tournament, which begins with 67 schools looking to claim divisional crowns. The tournaments will conclude Saturday, May 6 at Long Beach City College.

Boys Volleyball Playoffs

Second round matches took place Saturday, April 29, with only one of the three local teams that played advancing to the quarterfinal round this week. After taking down Elsinore in the first round of the Division 3 playoffs, Vista Murrieta defeated Oak Park, 3-1 (25-13, 25-20, ,2325, 25-20) in round two and will next face El Segundo, on the road Wednesday, May 3, which will be updated online. In Division 5, Temescal Canyon fell to Samueli Academy in three straight sets 2518, 25-23, 25-22 and in Division 6, Hawthorne MSA defeated San Jacinto Valley Academy in three straight as well, 25-17, 25-19. 25-22.

The quarterfinal round is set for Wednesday, May 3, after this article goes to print, and semifinals action will get underway Saturday, May 6. Championship matches will be either at Cerritos College or designated venues on Saturday, May 13.

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Outlook

Boys Tennis Playoffs Tennis is always one of the hardest sports to keep up with, but along with brackets coming out earlier this week, the one other major thing we do know is that the Great Oak Wolfpack won this year’s Southwestern League title and have done so 10 years in a row now, stemming back to 2014. They also won in 2006, 2007 and 2009, so it’s no doubt they are looking to have a deep run in the playoffs, which hasn’t come easy in recent years. Ian McGowan won the Singles title again this year and is the first Great Oak tennis player to win consecutive Southwestern League titles.

McGowan defeated Temecula Valley’s Michael Masarani while Eric Rutz-Robbins and Tanner Stock were the Doubles runnersup after they fell to Murrieta Valley’s Owen Pearson and Aidan Hever 6-2, 6-4. All six moved on as CIF Individual Qualifiers. Competition between the 185 postseason entries, including 11 from inside our coverage area, will get underway with wildcard round matches in select divisions having taken place earlier this week on Tuesday. All preliminary-round matches were served up at designated host sites as of Wednesday. The single-elimination tournament will conclude Friday, May 12, at The Claremont Club.

Area teams competing include:

Division 2: Great Oak (12-8-1) vs. Alta Loma (15-4); Temecula Valley (12-4) at Redlands (15-0).

Division 3: Murrieta Valley (10-

3) vs. Heritage (14-4). Division 5: Citrus Hill (8-2) vs.

Paloma Valley (11-5); Orange Vista (9-5) vs. Wildcard “J” winner; Hemet (9-5-1) vs. Wildcard “N” winner. Wildcard matchups also include Liberty (Mountain Pass, No. 2) vs. Chaffey (Mt. Baldy, No. 3); Elsinore (Inland Valley, No. 3) at Workman (Montview, No. 2); and West Valley (Mountain Pass ,No. 3) at Indio (Desert Valley, No. 3).

Swimming and Diving

Another tough to follow sport in the postseason is Swimming and Diving, but those brackets can be found online at www.faculty. polytechnic.org/cifss. As for the Southwestern League, Coach Jenn Beach shared the following info:

On Thursday, April 13, Murrieta Valley visited our Rams swimmers in a league match. For boys it was a nail biter where each race counted and in the end our Mesa Boys were victorious with 91-79 win; this means boys varsity is still undefeated in league dual meets and if they were able to win their dual meet against Temecula Valley they are poised to be the 2023 Champions after the finals the last week of April (Details came in after this article went to print, but can be found online).

Also, a big highlight of the meet on the girls side was senior Sonja Aarsvold breaking a team record by a little over six seconds in the 500 Freestyle. The previous record was held by Libby Gilbert (currently swimming at Ohio State) who set the record in 2019.

Individual highlights:

Girls 200 Medley A Relay (senior Emilee Elizondo, senior Kiersten Maag, senior Sonja Aarsvold and junior Madison Parker) placed first – CIF Consideration Cut.

Boys 200 Medley Relays swept the event with A Relay (sophomore Landon Spencer, junior Ty Schneider, senior Alex Pena and freshman Jonathan Streeter) placed first-CIF Consideration Cut; and B Relay (freshman Matthew Streeter, freshman Andrew Yang, senior Jeremiah Ramirez and junior Connor Wright) came in second.

Ty Schneider: First in the 200 Freestyle and CIF Consideration Cut. First in 500 Freestyle and CIF Consideration.

Sonja Aarsvold: First in 50 freestyle and CIF Automatic Cut. First in 500 Freestyle (School

Record) and CIF Automatic.

Senior Milad Haghighi: First in 50 Freestyle and first in the 100 Freestyle.

Emilee Elizondo: First in 100 Butterfly and CIF Consideration Cut. First in 100 Backstroke and CIF Consideration Cut.

Jonathan Streeter: First in 100 Butterfly.

Girls 200 Freestyle A Relay (Emilee Elizondo, Madison Parker, senior Melanie Arellano and Sonja Aarsvold) placed first.

Alex Pena: First in 100 Breaststroke and CIF Consideration.

Boys 400 Freestyle A Relay (Jonathan Streeter, Alex Pena, sophomore Sebastian Pena and Ty Schneider) placed first and CIF Consideration Cut.

Track and Field

The CIF Southern Section Track and Field League Finals took place last week at various tracks throughout the region, with the highly touted Southwestern League finals taking place at

Great Oak High School where the Wolfpack boys team won the title. Great Oak was led by strong performances in the 1600m and 3200m distance races and took the top seven spots in the 1600 with Gabriel Rodriguez finishing first with a time of 4:17.14. Carson Lynch won the 3200 with a time of 10:28.03. The top three spots were taken by Great Oak (159 points), Vista Murrieta (155 points) and Murrieta Mesa (114 points).

The Vista Murrieta girls team ran away with the team title on their side of the track, with 225 points. The Broncos performed well in both the field events and the track events. One of the top highlights of the day was Vista Murrieta pole vaulter Aspen Fears attempting to break the Riverside County record. She would fall short of achieving the top mark but won the league title with a vault of 12 feet, 10 inches. Murrieta Valley’s Madisyn Negro placed second with a vault of 12 feet, 4

TRACK from page C-2 inches. Murrieta Mesa’s Brooklyn Bright was a top performer on foot, winning the 400 and 200 with times of 56.74 and 25.24, respectively. The top three team spots were taken by Vista Murrieta with 225 points, Murrieta Valley with 83 points and Great Oak with 68 points.

In the Ambassador League, Linfield Christian’s Drew Taylor captured three individual titles as he swept the boys hurdling events (16.74 in the 110, 43.71 in the 300) and won the high jump (5-8).

Top performances from the Ivy League, Inland Valley League and Sunbelt League (Raincross) Finals include Heritage runner Terrence Whaley winning the 110m hurdles with a time of 15.02 and finishing second in the 300m hurdles with a time of 40.53. Elsinore’s Dajeauna Williams had jumps of 39’10” and Crystal Steier 34’5” finished 1-2 in the triple jump. Also, finishing with success, Orange Vista’s Kailah McKenzie placed first in the 100m hurdles timed at 14.35, 20’8” in the long jump, and 5’4” in the high jump. She also ran a leg on Orange Vista’s winning 1600 relay (4:00.65). Rancho

Christian’s Mariah Hughes placed first in three events she competed in: the 100 hurdles 17.49 high jump 4’10” and shot put 32’1.”

Paloma Valley’s Jason Deal took 100m and 200m honors with times of 10.48 and 21.33 while teammate Aaron Young swept the hurdles with times of 15.20 in the 110m and 40.04 in the 300m. Temescal

Canyon’s Megan Crum won the girls 1600m (5:13.96) and 3200m (11:35.23). Her teammate Victoria Redd swept the titles in the girls throws (35-2.5 in the shot put, 110-4 in the discus).

Top performances of the Mountain Pass League Final include Liberty’s Nevaeh Moala finishing first in the 100m hurdles and 300m hurdles with times of 17.89 seconds and 49.34 seconds.

The boys hurdlers also had success with Paul Ortega winning the 110m race with a time of 15.76 seconds and Eddie Smith, second at 15.84 seconds. Smith also won the 300m hurdles in 42.14 seconds.

The official team results aren’t posted, however with Liberty placing or winning in almost every event, they will be big-time contenders moving forward.

Top performers from local schools that qualified in Division

1 for the CIF-SS prelims Saturday, May 6, at Trabuco Hills High School include:

Boys 4x100m

Seeding, No. 2- Murrieta Mesa

‘A’ - 41.74 seconds – 1. Green, Elijah (12); 2. Bright, William Isaiah (10); 3. Soriano, Hans (12); 4. Eisenhauer, Chase (12);

5. Baskerville, Elijah (12).

Girls 1600m

Seeding, No. 3 - Lieberman, Sofia - Murrieta Valley - 4:59.02.

Girls 100m Hurdles

1. McKenzie, Kailah (12)Orange Vista.

Boys 110m Hurdles

3. Green, Elijah (12) - Murrieta Mesa - 14.53.

4. Bright, William Isaiah (10)Murrieta Mesa - 14.69.

Girls 400m Dash

3. Ehiemere, Mercy (12)Orange Vista - 55.82.

6. Bright, Brooklynn (11)Murrieta Mesa - 56.74.

Girls 100m Dash

1. Anyansi, Taylor (10)Murrieta Valley - 11.92.

Boys 100m Dash

4. Deal, Jason (12) - Paloma Valley - 10.48.

Girls 800m Run

3. Holloway, Fiona (11) - Vista Murrieta - 2:17.86.

Boys 800m Run

2. Johnson, Tarron (12) - Vista Murrieta - 1:53.6.

in 2024-2025

Valley News/Time Stood Still Photography

Chaparral’s Southwestern League champion, Leland Godfrey, set a new PR and school record of 55’8 in shot put and was runner-up in discus with a throw of 46’10.

Boys 200m Dash

4. Deal, Jason (12) - Paloma Valley - 21.33.

Girls 3200M Run

1. Avina, Arielle (9) - Murrieta Valley.

Boys 3200m Run

4. Brown, Westin (10) - Great Oak - 9:14.39. Boys 4x400m Run

3. Heritage ‘A’ - 3:22.15 seconds – 1. LaMothe, Elijah (10); 2. Duregger, Jacob (10); 3. SaffordMiles, Isaiah (11); 4. Serrato, Carlos (12); 5. Whaley, Terrence (10); 6. Luboya, Roland (10). Girls High Jump

2. Smith, Emoree (11) - Vista Murrieta, 5-04.

2. Mckenzie, Kailah (12)Orange Vista, 5-04. Girls Pole Vault

1. Fears, Aspen (11) - Vista Murrieta - 12-10.

3. Negro, Madisyn (12)Murrieta Valley - 12-04.

5. Rodriguez, Katie (12) - Vista Murrieta - 11-10.

Girls Long Jump

1. Mckenzie, Kailah (12)Orange Vista - 20-08.

5. Alumbres, Alyssa (11) - Vista Murrieta - 18-03.

Girls Triple Jump

2. Williams, Dajeauna (12)Elsinore - 39-10.

Boys High Jump

1. Williamson, Bryson (12)Vista Murrieta - 6-04.

Boys Pole Vault

2. Pepito, Austin (12) - Great Oak - 15-07.

Boys Long Jump

5. Nwafor, Obi (12) - Vista

Murrieta - 22-02.50.

Boys Triple Jump

1. Nwafor, Obi (12) - Vista Murrieta - 45-10.25.

5. Smith, Devyn (12) – Elsinore - 44-00.00.

7. Saenz, Joseph (12) - Murrieta Valley - 43-08.00.

8. Robinson, Andrew (11)Great Oak - 43-07.50. Boys Shot Put

3. Godfrey, Leland (12)Chaparral - 55-08.75.

5. Epps, Jayden (11) - Paloma Valley - 51-09.

If there are any changes in times, dates, or sites please email either Derryl at socaltrekkie@gmail.com or JP at sports@reedermedia.com with corrected information. Track and Field contributions made by Action Captures Media Group.