Orange County Teams Reach Familiar Places

Four of the eight teams left in the Southern California community college baseball playoffs are from the Orange Empire Conference.

But this is hardly anything new.

The conference has held 40 of the 96 spots since the current format was adopted in 1988.

Santa Ana is the only Southern California team to make it all 12 years. The Dons (28-17) open the double-elimination second round at 3 today against host Cuesta (37-10).

“You start preparing for this from the first day of practice,” Santa Ana Coach Don Sneddon said. “That’s what you work for.”

Saddleback (32-13), another OEC team that is making its fifth consecutive appearance in the second round, plays Palomar (32-7) at Cuesta at 11.

Cypress, which won the Orange Empire Conference this year, is hosting the other four-team regional. Each regional continues Saturday and the title game at each site is at 11 a.m. Sunday. The winner of each regional advances to the state tournament May 29-31 at Fresno.

The Chargers (32-12-1), making their seventh consecutive appearance in the second round, play conference rival Orange Coast (29-18) at 3 p.m. This is the second time the Pirates have made it to the second round since 1988.

Cypress split four meetings with OCC this year. The Chargers have won eight in a row, including beating Hancock twice in the first round of the playoffs last weekend.

“I thought we played well the last [round of conference],” Cypress Coach Scott Pickler said, “but we didn’t play that well last weekend. We just played well enough to win.”

Cerritos (33-13) and Long Beach (31-16), both members of the South Coast Conference, play at 11 a.m. today at Cypress.