Seahawks Try to Regroup; Warriors Try to Rebuild : Harbor: Second-year Coach Tony Bloomfield thinks his team should be better than last season’s 33-7 squad.

To a baseball program with as glowing a past as Harbor College’s, merely winning the league title and advancing to the regional is a job half-done. Missing the state tournament is a virtual disaster.

That is what happened to the Seahawks and first-year coach Tony Bloomfield last season. They finished 33-9 and won the Southern California Athletic Conference championship. But they lost in the regional to L.A. Pierce and missed a trip to the state tournament, which the Seahawks had won in 1990 under coach Jim O’Brien.

Such were the breaks for Bloomfield’s debut season.

This year, Bloomfield has a year’s experience behind him and, more importantly, what he considers to be a better team. An 18-4 thumping of L.A. Valley on Tuesday put the Seahawks at 13-3 going into today’s conference opener against L.A. City.

“We’re playing well,” Bloomfield said. “We can play with anybody this year. We’re young but talented.

“We’ve gotten away with some mental mistakes this year because we’re so talented.”

As usual, Harbor got the cream of the South Bay’s high school crop last year, and the recruiting class is already paying dividends. Second baseman David Rosato, out of South Torrance High, and third baseman Tristan Paul, out of Rolling Hills, have been particularly impressive.

But if the Seahawks, who were ranked third in the state in a preseason poll, go a long way this season, it will be pitching and defense that carries them, Bloomfield said.

“We definitely have the pitching to win it all,” he said. “Pitching and defense--those are our strengths. We also have a lot of team speed. What we don’t have is a lot of depth--we need to stay healthy to win it all.”

Marco Martinez out of Carson has made the biggest impact among newcomers on the pitching staff. He is 2-0 with two complete games.

Harbor also possesses what Bloomfield calls “the best catcher in the state, bar none,” in cannon-armed Rene Lopez, who is batting over .500 and has given up only three stolen bases this year.

“It’s the old Harbor style of play,” Bloomfield said. “Good pitching and defense, plus we have great team speed. By the end of the year, we’ll be real good.”

In a way, it may be beneficial that there are so many freshmen on the team because they don’t feel burdened by last year’s disappointing finish.

“I wasn’t disappointed about last year,” Bloomfield said. “We lost to the team that went on to win the state championship.”

What Bloomfield feels, he said, is “bitterness” about the way it happened and the media’s treatment of him afterward.

After Harbor, heavily favored and playing at home, lost two of three games in the regional and was eliminated, several people in the media second-guessed the way Bloomfield handled his pitching staff.

But Bloomfield has no regrets. “I’d do it all the same way this time.”

And this time, Bloomfield feels he will be better prepared. “This year, we won’t run out of pitching,” he said. “To me, this year we’re much better.”