Community College Notebook / Steve Kresal : Cypress, With Its Baseball Title, Gets a Break From Wild-Card Round

Cypress College, which won the Orange Empire Conference baseball title Saturday, is in the midst of a 13-day break.

The Chargers won’t play again until May 19 in the first round of the double-elimination Southern California Regionals.

Second-place Rancho Santiago and third-place Orange Coast don’t have such a long wait. Both are in the playoffs, all right, but both must play in the single-elimination wild-card round, which starts Thursday. Rancho Santiago (27-15) plays host to East Los Angeles and Orange Coast (30-10-1) is at Los Angeles Valley (29-11-1). Both games start at 2 p.m.

Grossmont (29-12) is at Cerritos (33-8-1) and Citrus (22-20) is at San Diego Mesa (21-14) in Thursday’s other wild-card games.

The winner of the Rancho Santiago-East Los Angeles game plays Orange Coast or L.A. Valley Saturday. The winners of the Grossmont-Cerritos and Citrus-San Diego Mesa games also play Saturday.

The winners of Saturday’s games will then join the six top-seeded teams, all conference champions, in the regionals.

Cypress (31-13), Palomar (21-15-1), L.A. Harbor (29-13) and one of the wild-card winners will play at Rancho Santiago College in the three-day tournament. Long Beach (24-14), Ventura (29-9), Mt. San Jacinto (24-15) and the second of the wild-card winners will play at Cerritos College.

Softball: Fullerton, Cypress, Saddleback and Golden West qualified for the 16-team, single-elimination first round of the Southern California playoffs, which begin Wednesday.

Fullerton, the second-seeded team, plays host to No. 15 Bakersfield, and Cypress, seeded fifth, plays host to No. 12 Pasadena.

Saddleback, the No. 7 team, plays host to No. 10 Southwestern, and No. 9 Golden West is at No. 8 Antelope Valley. Palomar, the No. 1-seeded team, will playing host to No. 16 Citrus. All games are at 3 p.m.

The winners of Wednesday’s games advance to the second round, which is a best-of-three format and starts Saturday at 3 p.m. The second games are scheduled for Sunday at noon, followed by third games if necessary.

The four second-round winners meet the four winners from the North in the double-elimination state tournament May 19-21 at Golden West College.

More softball: Kristin Jacobs of Fullerton was voted the pitcher of the year and Rose Ferrante of Cypress was selected player of the year by the Orange Empire Conference softball coaches.

Margo Davis, who led Fullerton to the conference title by a six-game margin, was chosen coach of the year.

Jacobs, a sophomore from Central Catholic High School in Portland, Ore., was 28-7 with a 0.47 earned-run average. In conference play, she was 15-1 with a 0.24 ERA. She also was named state pitcher of the year. Jacobs already has signed a letter of intent to attend Cal State Fullerton.

Ferrante, a freshman catcher from Savanna High School, hit .401 with seven doubles, eight triples, six home runs and 40 RBIs.

Jacobs and Colleen Moore of Cypress were the conference’s first-team pitchers.

Heather Illsley of Rancho Santiago, Gretchen Bock of Golden West, Debbie Wagner of Fullerton, Kim Braatz of Saddleback and Brenda Velasquez of Orange Coast were named first-team infielders.

Toni Barrett of Golden West and Stephanie Fleischaker of Fullerton were first-team first basemen. Ferrante and Kelly Hilliard of Fullerton were first-team catchers.

Kelli Johnson of Fullerton, Chris DeMarzie of Golden West, Wendy Robinson of Orange Coast and Kerry Callahan of Cypress were first-team outfielders.

Community College Notes

Volleyball player Brian Lewis of Orange Coast was voted the most valuable player of the South Coast Conference by a vote of the conference coaches. Lewis, a sophomore outside hitter, also played on the Orange Coast team that won the Southern California title two seasons ago. He sat out last season. Middle blocker Scott Lindquist of Orange Coast and teammate Dan Murray, an outside hitter, also were named to the first team. Golden West’s Tim Johnson also made the first team. Kurt Dumm of Orange Coast and Doug Partis of Golden West were named to the second team.