Irvine and Woodbridge meet Tuesday in historic second round CIF baseball playoff

Ryan Lemmon Stadium, home of the Woodbridge Warriors, will be the site of Tuesday’s second round playoff game. (PHOTO: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

Sports fans in the city of Irvine should be excited about this one.

Irvine and Woodbridge baseball teams will meet Tuesday at Ryan Lemmon Stadium in the second round of the CIF Division 4 playoffs. Both teams won their playoff openers Friday. Top-seeded Woodbridge defeated Valley Christian 4-1 at Ryan Lemmon Stadium and Irvine topped St. Bernard 8-0 at Irvine.

In past years, the CIF playoff committee tried to put teams from the same league in different brackets if they were in the same playoff division. That all changed this year with the new competitive equity criteria, so an Irvine-Woodbridge match-up, believed to be the first second round playoff game between the two rivals, will occur and likely attract a large crowd.

Woodbridge is the home team after winning a coin toss so Coach Ryan Brucker is trying to get approval from the city of Irvine, which runs the stadium, to have a 7 p.m. game on Tuesday.

Irvine won both league games vs. Woodbridge this season, 6-3 on April 9 and 6-1 on April 11.

“There are no secrets obviously,” Irvine Coach Gabriel Cota said after Friday’s win. “They’re a very, very good team and obviously great coaching over there. We know if we don’t play our best ball, it’s going to be an uphill battle. We beat them twice this year but it’s real tough to beat someone three times. We’re super excited and obviously we have nothing but respect for them.”

OC Sports Zone will have full coverage of Tuesday’s match-up.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com