Despite lopsided loss to St. Anthony, young Santa Ana team looks forward to CIF playoffs

Santa Ana coaches meet with the Saints following Thursday’s game. (PHOTOS: Jacob Ramos, For OC Sports Zone).

Coming into May already having clinched a CIF baseball playoff berth, Santa Ana High School hosted St. Anthony for a non-league matchup on Thursday.

The Saints (8-12-1, 6-5) recently secured the No. 2 seed from the Orange Coast League, guaranteeing the team of playoff baseball in May. Santa Ana lost in a five-inning mercy-rule fashion 12-0 against a more experienced and older St Anthony team. 

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St. Anthony (14-8, 8-4) may have gotten the best of Santa Ana in the blowout, but the Saints can look forward to more meaningful baseball later in the month. For a team that relies on two freshman aces, only carries one senior and lost a crucial arm to injury early in the season, a CIF berth is not only a success story, but an improbable accomplishment. 

OC Sports Zone asked Santa Ana Coach Louis Oakley about the feeling of knowing his program clinched a post season spot before the regular season came to an end, and how it affects his team’s mentality in games like Thursday’s where the outcome isn’t as meaningful as if the Saints had not already punched their ticket to CIF.

“I don’t think the win or loss is what we were concentrating on. It was definitely how we played,” Oakley said post game. “[Today] hurts because of how we played, that’s for sure.”

Despite riding the high of clinching a playoff spot in April, the error bug plagued Santa Ana all afternoon long. The Saints committed five errors through the first four innings.

Capitalizing on the mistakes, St. Anthony put 12 runs on Santa Ana, with eight coming in the top of the fourth. A three-run home run by St. Anthony freshman Luke DeGiorgio put an exclamation mark on the damage and put the game out of reach for Santa Ana early.

Santa Ana was hitless going into the fifth inning, before freshman JV-callup Andrew Diaz broke up the no-hit bid by St. Anthony pitcher Nick Gallucio.

But that didn’t matter in the long run for Santa Ana. Oakley’s players understood that the playoffs are just on the horizon, and no matter the score of any blowout, a loss is just that: a loss.

Spirits remained high in the Saints’ dugout, regardless of the score, with players smiling throughout the game and knowing that they would still be playing baseball in a few weeks. 

While his players cracked jokes amongst themselves in the dugout postgame, Oakley talked about what it felt like to clinch a playoff spot before regular season play concluded.

“It was definitely our goal at the beginning of the season to make [the CIF] playoffs, and to do it with league games still remaining is very special,” Oakley said. “The boys have been working very hard since August. We have accomplished our goal and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

St. Anthony had six stolen bases in their victory against Santa Ana, running at will on the Saints’ defense.

Stolen bases and small ball offense can often kill a team come playoff time, and Oakley knows this. Understanding the Saints were playing in effective practice games for their upcoming playoff run, Oakley chose to give backup catcher Mario Rodriguez the start behind the plate.

Rodriguez made some accurate throws, but St. Anthony had six stolen bases all of which eventually led to runs by the visitors. Despite the young catcher struggling at times, it was an underwhelming team defensive effort that resulted in the blowout loss, which Oakley acknowledged. 

Moving forward, the Saints’ head coach understands what will need to happen for his Saints to go deep in May.

“We’re very young, we’re going through bumps and bruises. We’re learning how to play a fundamental baseball and situational baseball. It takes reps, but I’m happy with their progress,” Oakley said.

Regardless of how the Saints’ season concludes, the story of a young, feisty, improbable playoff team will be one to follow. Santa Ana will learn its first-round playoff matchup soon.

Santa Ana has one more non-league game to wrap up the season on Tuesday, May 6.

CIF playoff pairings will be announced on Monday, May 12. The opening round games are Thursday, May 15 and Friday, May 16 with divisions to be announced later.