Saddleback’s Trani Won’t Miss His Friend

Saddleback softball Coach Nick Trani and Cypress Coach Brad Pickler are good friends, but Trani is thrilled not to be at the same four-team regional playoff site as his pal this year.

The reason? Cypress has ended Saddleback’s season each of the last three years.

Cypress stopped the Gauchos in regional play the last two years. The year before that, Saddleback wasn’t in the same regional as Cypress and reached the state tournament only to be eliminated by the Chargers.

The playoffs start today with No. 12 Saddleback (32-13-1) playing No. 5 Hancock (38-15-1) at 2 p.m. at Moorpark College. Moorpark (30-9), which was seeded fourth, plays No. 13 Chaffey (22-22) at noon.

Winning the regional is well within reach for Saddleback, which tied Hancock, split two games with Moorpark and beat Chaffey already this season.

The 10 days off between the end of the season and the playoffs is key for Saddleback and well-rested pitcher Tara Kroener (26-11, 13 shutouts, 186 strikeouts).

Cypress is seeded first in Southern California and hosting its eighth consecutive four-team regional tournament.

The Chargers (51-7) open with No. 16 Grossmont (20-11) at noon. At 2 p.m., No. 9 Cuesta (37-11) takes on No. 8 Antelope Valley (32-15-1). The winners meet at 4 p.m. and the tournament continues Saturday with the championship at 2 p.m.

Cypress is playing for its 11th consecutive trip to the state tournament. The Chargers, who have won the last two state titles and are 170-17 over the last three seasons, are led by Orange Empire Conference player of the year Melissa Beck (.455, seven home runs, 53 RBIs) and pitcher Mandy Rockwell (28-1, 0.83 earned-run average).

Fullerton (34-11) is the other Orange County team to make the playoffs, but the No. 11 Hornets must wait until Saturday to start.

Fullerton is at Palomar where the baseball and softball fields sit too close to have games safely played simultaneously. The baseball team played Thursday and today and softball starts Saturday with No. 3 Palomar (37-12) playing No. 14 Pasadena (20-20-1) at noon and Fullerton takes on No. 6 Canyons (30-12-1) at 2.

ON THE ROAD

Even before the baseball season started, Santa Ana Coach Don Sneddon had lowered his expectations because of the loss of pitcher Greg Young to an arm problem.

As the season went on, Santa Ana lost four more front-line pitchers to various injuries and the pitching woes resulted in a fifth-place finish in the Orange Empire Conference.

But Santa Ana’s good name--three state titles and six conference titles this decade--and a solid record against ranked teams this season got the Dons into the playoffs for the 12th consecutive season.

“There is no question we deserve to be in,” Sneddon said. His reasoning is simple. Santa Ana won 11 times against top-10 teams and 14 losses were to top-10 teams.

Santa Ana is headed to Ridgecrest to play Cerro Coso (31-12) in a best-of-three series starting at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Richard Lane, a freshman center fielder, is hitting .404 with 14 home runs and 66 runs batted in and shortstop Josh Shaffer is at .362 with seven home runs and 45 RBIs for the Dons. Joe Urban, who played the infield and outfield, hit 12 home runs.

BE CAREFUL HERE

Second-seeded Cypress hosts No. 15 Hancock also in the baseball playoffs starting at 1 p.m. today.

Cypress Coach Scott Pickler is worried about an upset and won’t have to go far to give an example.

His Chargers were seeded 15th last season and went to No. 2 Cuesta and sweep a Saturday doubleheader to reach the second round of the playoffs.

In other first-round matchups: No. 12 Grossmont (29-13) is at No 5 Saddleback (30-13) and No. 9 Mt. San Antonio (25-16) is at No. 8 Orange Coast (27-17).

Saddleback defeated Grossmont 15-13 and Mt. San Antonio beat OCC 8-4 earlier this season.