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Foothill gets into CIF-SS baseball playoffs, draws a familiar opponent in first round

May 1, 2023

Foothill’s baseball team got the good news Monday morning that it had received a spot in the CIF Southern Section playoffs.

It might not seem like good news looking at Foothill’s first-round opponent — Santa Margarita — in the Division 1 bracket.

Santa Margarita is the division’s No. 2 seed and won the Trinity League with a wildly impressive 14-1 league record. It’s also ranked No. 1 in the Orange County Top 25.

But that probably won’t worry Foothill. The Knights beat Santa Margarita 6-4 on Feb. 22. And last year in the CIF-SS playoffs, the Knights beat the Eagles 5-4.

Foothill takes a 14-14 record into this year’s playoffs. They tied El Modena for third place in the four-team Crestview League.

Santa Margarita is 22-6.

Only the top two teams in a four-team league receive guaranteed playoff berths, so Foothill needed an at-large berth to get into the playoffs. The Knights were one of the two at-large teams selected to the 32-team Division 1 bracket; Orange Lutheran (17-10-1), the fourth-place team in the Trinity League, is the other.

Servite (14-14) was a Division 1 at-large candidate.

Foothill coach Chris Price said the game at Santa Margarita on Feb. 22 could help the Knights on Thursday.

“We’ll be familiar with their field,” Price said. “And we’ll see a similar lineup like we did back then. It’s not a foreign environment and we had some success against them.”

Another rematch of two Orange County teams is Dana Hills at Aliso Niguel in a Division 3 first-round game Thursday.

Aliso Niguel beat Dana Hills 9-5 on March 3.

Aliso Niguel, champion of the Sea View League, is 14-13. Dana Hills, which finished third in the South Coast League is 11-17. Both teams go into the playoffs hot, with Dana Hills having swept Trabuco Hills in three games last week and Aliso Niguel having won seven of its final eight regular-season games.

Crean Lutheran (19-8) is Orange County’s only No. 1-seeded team. The Saints, who finished third behind co-champions Cypress and Pacifica in the Empire League, are in Division 4.

The playoffs begin Tuesday with wild card games in Division 7. There are wild card games Wednesday in Divisions 2 and 6. Wild card games are required for divisions that need them to reduce their first-round fields to 32 teams.

First-round games are Thursday in Divisions 2, 4 and 6. First-round games are Friday in Divisions 1, 3, 5 and 7.

All divisions play second-round games May 9, quarterfinals May 12 and semifinals May 16. The championship games are May 19 and 20 at Blair Field in Long Beach.

On Monday afternoon the weather forecast for Thursday said there is a 60 percent chance of morning showers. Some games could be moved to Wednesday to avoid a rainout. Moving a game to Wednesday could be a more viable move than a Friday move because of umpire availability.

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Foothill gets into CIF-SS baseball playoffs, draws a familiar opponent in first round

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