Dave Roberts, director of the World Series Dodgers champion, meeting Andy Wise, your baseball counterpart at the high school in Corona High.
Like Roberts, Wise had the best team on paper last season and won the division 1 championship in the South section. Like Roberts, he has so much talent that not winning a title this season would be considered a failure. Like Roberts, he has his own version of Shohei Ohtani in the basic player of the Seth Hernandez launcher, Mookie Betts in the Billy Carlson and Freddie Freeman stop in the third goal Brady Ebel.
“Honestly, our whole inner field is quite incredible,” said Hernandez. “It is unreal to have this support system behind you.”
It is clear that the two best baseball teams for 2025 should be the Dodgers and Corona High. They are both classified n ° 1 in America without necessary debate.
Of course, unlike Roberts, who may need to win a series of seven games to win a championship, Wise has a more difficult task. Secondary playoffs are won or go home. You can’t have a day off and have a second chance. This is where Corona’s opponents have a chance to fight. A good pitch performance can ruin the panthers season, no matter how dominant they could be during the regular season.
“Everything is amplified and there is a pressure,” said Wise. “There are so many good teams in Division 1 that you really have to have things that happen to you and luck on your side.”
There are a lot of Teams capable of bringing Corona home without trophy. Huntington Beach lost against the panthers in the semi-finals last season and is responsible for pitching, strike and 13 players engaged in four-year schools. Orange Lutheran has the 6 -foot 8 inch launcher Gary Morse and the fabulous power striker Josiah Hartshorn. The League mission is armed from top to bottom to face all the teams. The Mirada opens its new $ 20 million field and has a range filled with better strikers.
And yet it would not be unlikely to bet the house and your Taylor Swift t-shirts on the panthers.
Hernandez has the skills of pitch to be a top-five selection in the amateur project MLB this summer. Carlson is an exceptional stop and probably in the first round that strikes power and has unpleasant stuff when he takes the mound as closer. Ebel would play the Curart without Carlson. He is the son of the coach of the third base of the Dodgers, Dino Ebel, so baseball runs in his veins and brother Trey is the second basic player.
The anthony Murphy voltiseur can hit, run and make the ground. Arrowhead Christian Ethin Bingan Transfer is a commitment from Auburn who will play the right field when he does not launch.
When asked if he was going to consult Roberts on pressure and expectations, Wise said: “I almost want I could. Lycée baseball is baseball of the playoffs. When you arrive at the CIF qualifiers, each game is really the World Series. »»
Helping panthers is chemistry and players’ confidence. Each practice, they compete.
“Having so much talent in a school pushes you to do better every day,” said Carlson.
The panthers know that they will be hunted with each opponent hoping to have their season with a victory over Corona.
“I like competition,” said Hernandez. “I like everyone to come after us with their best.”
Carlson, who sometimes becomes a little emotional when he closes the games, admitted: “I am a real competition guy. Sometimes, when the moment becomes big, I like to let the other team know that I hit them. “”
The only uncertainty for the panthers is to catcher, where the four -year -old Josh Springer went to professional baseball. Jesiah Andrade, Junior Andrade, who did not play high school ball last season, chose to play Yucaipa in the first year. “His development was great,” said Wise.
From fans to scouts to players, when Corona comes to town, people want to see them play.
Hernandez will be mainly under the microscope, but it is not as if it were not ready for the spotlight.
“Because I have been blessed to do this for a while, I have always had people who looked at me,” he said. “It’s nothing new. You continue to come with your game A.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
