Irvine baseball squad captures PCL victories over Northwood and Laguna Hills

Tate Zimmerman (left) celebrates after a home run Friday vs. Northwood. (Photo courtesy Jim Tomlin, For OC Sports Zone).

Irvine High School’s baseball team got into the win column last weekend, defeating Northwood 12-3 on Friday and Laguna Hills 5-0 on Saturday.

“We are starting to get healthy which has led to us playing better baseball,” said Irvine Coach Gabriel Cota. “We are excited to get in the win column and are looking forward to a big week of league.”

Irvine (2-8, 2-3) had a strong offensive attack Friday against Northwood.

Tate Zimmerman was 2 for 5 with two RBI, a double, home run and two runs scored; Ian Hew was 2 for 2; with a double and two RBI and a run scored; Bryan Wilhelm was 2 for 3 with a double and a run scored, and Henry Jeong was 1 for 4 with a home run and two RBI.

Joon Lee pitched the first five innings, striking out eight and allowed one earned run, Matthew Kim pitched one inning striking out two and Logan Villanueva pitched one inning.

In Saturday’s win over Laguna Hills, Caden Shaffer pitched a complete game shutout, striking out seven and allowing three hits.

Wilhelm was 2 for 3 with a home run, RBI and a run scored,  Zimmerman was 1 for 4 with two RBI and Jeong was 1 for 2 with a run scored.

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