Baseball: Laguna finishes summer ball

An eight-game summer season came to an end Wednesday for the Laguna Beach High baseball team.

Wednesday’s game against Capistrano Valley Christian capped that scrimmage schedule and sends the Breakers toward the off-season. They’ll start up again next spring.

The summer varsity team included eight returning players from a squad that won the Orange Coast League title and reached the semifinal round of the CIF Southern Section playoffs, plus six newcomers.

Although eight, talented varsity veterans return, the 2014 team did lose several key players to graduation in June.

“We realize much work needs to be done before spring but that we have some young, committed players who really desire to play at a high level,” Laguna Coach Mike Bair said.

The Breakers took on the likes of Newport Harbor, Beckman (twice), University, La Habra, Foothill, Irvine and Capo Valley Christian during summer play.

“This team is very coach-able and is starting to really see how important it is to take care of all the details of the game,” he said. “I hope this team takes of time. We have time to get bigger, faster, stronger, smarter and better.”

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Football

The Breakers this week reached the halfway point of their summer training and have 12 more non-pads practice sessions remaining before the start of fall camp.

Laguna played its second and final 7-on-7 passing game July 24 at Northwood.

“We definitely saw improvement from our first passing game,” said Laguna Coach Corey Brown whose team passed against Laguna Hills July 15 at Guyer Field. “I thought our secondary and our linebackers played much better than that first game. We were encouraged by what we saw defensively. Was it as good as we wanted it to be? No, but the improvement was there and that’s a good sign.”

The Breakers begin fall camp Aug. 15 in preparation for their Sept. 5 opener at Bolsa Grande.

“Summer is all about getting better and getting guys adjusted,” Brown said. “We have a lot of young guys playing at the varsity level for the first time. I feel as though we have a good foundation installed. We’re taking a lot time watching [game] film and our guys our improving, you can see that on film.

“We are focusing on running our offense, making reads on defense, and really putting a special emphasis on special teams play. We are focusing on quality, not quantity, of reps right now.”