Baseball: Orange Lutheran vs. Riverside North is on deck in Division I

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Orange Lutheran (21-5) is playing host to Riverside North (16-11) in a first-round Southern Section-Toyota Division I playoff game at 7 Thursday at Hart Park in Orange.

People are starting to fill up the bleachers, the announcer is already predicting a standing-room only crowd. My guess is that most people are here to check out Lancers starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, a UCLA signee and projected first-round draft pick in next month’s Major League Baseball amateur draft. Why pay later when you can see him for free right now? Cole, who has reached 99 mph on radar guns, has 98 strikeouts in 61 innings.

The winner of tonight’s game plays El Modena, which beat Aliso Niguel, 6-1, earlier in the day, in a second-round game Tuesday.

-- Jaime Cardenas

-- Image by Jaime Cardenas