OC Sports Zone looking forward to another memorable year of sports in 2023

Tesoro Coach Steve Garrett congratulates Los Alamitos players after the Griffins won the Tustin Classic Friday night. (Photos: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

It was an amazing final week of high school sports for 2022 with Orange County basketball teams bringing home tournament championships.

This capped a very memorable year, which was filled with CIF championships, total dedication by local athletes and coaches and lots of enthusiasm in the stands.

It was great to see so many fans at the games, including Friday night at the Tustin Classic, which is one of the elite basketball tournaments in Southern California.

We’ve been blessed at OC Sports Zone to chronicle many of the events this year and readers in Orange County responded. This year, we eclipsed the two million mark in total page views, or stories read in our brief existence. During the football playoffs, we surpassed single day page view records twice.

We’re grateful for your response and are appreciative to those of you who have submitted photos and stories for the site.

To see additional photos, click on the first picture:

Like any successful team, OC Sports Zone is a team effort, starting with our co-founder Gabriel Calderon. You don’t see his name often but he holds our site together, provides innovative ideas and technical support and generates our partnerships, which provide the funding so we can continue to operate our site for free.

Our photographer Fernando M. Donado represented us well and provides us with tremendous photos week in and week out along with being instrumental in Instagram posts. Fernando has been with us from the start, and we’re very appreciative.

Tom Connolly, a long-time Orange County writer, has delivered timely and informative stories under deadline, and done it well, capturing the events perfectly with in-depth interviews of athletes and coaches.

We’ve also been blessed to have several people contributing content, including former Long Beach Press Telegram writer and sports editor Jim McCormack. We don’t know how he can provide such amazing pictures and deliver a lively, informative story at the same time. Somehow Jim does it, and we’re grateful.

Photograper Mark Bausman, a fixture in the Santa Ana community, has come through with some amazing photos the past few years. Mark loves to shoot football, but no matter what the sport, he captures the moments so well.

And Jim Tomlin, a long-time Irvine resident, has been gracious in contributing fantastic football and baseball photos of Orange County sports.

We wouldn’t be able to provide this coverage without the following partners:

—Oakwood Wealth Partners, Michael Lockwood

—Crean Lutheran High School

— Santa Ana Unified School District

—Santa Ana College

—-Portola High School Athletic Boosters

—-Woodbridge High School Athletic Boosters

Many others have helped along the way, and we’re grateful to all. We’re always happy to welcome additional partners, which helps us expand our coverage throughout the county.

In 2023, we remain committed with our motto continuing to be, “Community first.” We want to continue to grow our audience and involve even more programs.

We certainly would like to cover more sports in South County; we need to figure out how to make that work.

Our site, which is an independent locally run operation, won’t stay the same. We will try new things, stop doing things that don’t work and will continue to evolve but our commitment to Orange County remains the same!

Thank you OC for supporting OC Sports Zone.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

—-Tim Burt, editor and owner; timburt@ocsportszone.com