Portola baseball coach says Bulldogs shooting for CIF playoffs in first varsity season

Portola’s first varsity baseball coach Michael Nagamatsu is excited about leading the Bulldogs (Photo: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Portola High’s first varsity baseball coach Michael Nagamatsu said his squad is setting the bar high as it prepares for the start of Pacific Coast League play later this week.

The Bulldogs, who have started out the season 3-2, play at Beckman Friday, at 3 p.m. against the defending league champion Patriots.

“We don’t have any seniors, we’re all juniors,” Nagamatsu said. “We have some sophomores and one freshman and we’re establishing a good tradition here. We’re working hard and all the guys are buying in.”

Nagamatsu said the team has established what it wants to do this season.

“We have one goal this year and that is to make it CIF (playoffs) and I think that will surprise a lot of people; we’re probably the youngest team in the state,” he said. “Guys are working hard and they understand that goal and they’re working toward that every day.”

Nagamatsu is originally from Seattle and has lived in Orange County for about five years.

“I was a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks for four years and I played collegiately and played professionally and now I’m coaching,” he said.

Nagamatsu played with the Baltimore Orioles organization before being released and then signed an overseas contract as a player and a head coach for a team in Austria.

Nagamatsu had been a head coach in travel ball. The Portola job is his first high school head coaching job.

“I wanted to get back into coaching so I got this job and I was hired before the school was even finished,” he said.

“This was just dirt, there was no field here so we actually had our first summer camp at Northwood High School and we didn’t even have equipment. I ended up using all my stuff and it’s mixed in between everything we have here.”

Nagamatsu is now happy to be coaching at the new on-campus field at Portola.

“It’s great. Everybody who comes here says ‘this looks like a college campus,’” he said. “Everything is brand new.”

A new scoreboard will eventually be installed, he said.

“We’re getting there,” he said.

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