Baseball: Mater Dei at Los Alamitos should be a good one in Division I

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Some excellent matchups loom in the Southern Section-Toyota Division I quarterfinals Friday. Of course, Mater Dei at Los Alamitos is the best of the bunch.

In my final rankings, I had Los Alamitos as the No. 1 team in the division and Mater Dei as the third best. The know-it-all coaches who make up the Division I poll, which the Southern Section seems to lean on pretty heavily when designing its playoff brackets, had the Griffins as the top team in the division, but Mater Dei way down at No. 8.

That forced a quarterfinal matchup that looks more like a semifinal.

I’m not going to sit here and question the coaches’ judgment, let’s just allow things to play out on the field.

Los Alamitos was lucky to get past Anaheim Canyon in the second round Tuesday. The Comanches basically had one healthy, experienced pitcher and Gabe Garcia threw 122 pitches before he could go no more. Canyon brought in a wide-eyed reliever and the Griffins finally came to life, scoring five runs in the top of the seventh and squeezing by, 7-6.

Mater Dei’s pitching staff is in much better shape heading into this one, while the ace for the top-seeded Griffins, Beau Wright, threw a lot of pitches in relief against Canyon. Not only that, but the Griffins’ shortstop, Kirk Singer, appeared to suffer a significant ankle injury at the end of the game.

-- Dan Arritt