La Mirada High head coach Jimmy Zurn, with Gerry Boras of the Boras Family Foundation, accepts the runner-up trophy from the 13th annual Boras Baseball Classic last Friday night. The Matadores fell to Corona High 8-3 in the championship game. PHOTO BY LOREN KOPFF.
March 29, 2025
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – The championship game of the 13th Annual Boras Baseball Classic was a rematch of two highly nationally ranked teams, facing each other for the second time in 25 days. La Mirada High, ranked third in the state by MaxPreps.com and 18th in the nation, was seeking revenge against top-ranked Corona High, which had allowed just one run through the first 10 games of the new season.
The Panthers wasted little time showing why they are the nation’s best, scoring three runs in the top of the first inning, highlighted by Billy Carlson’s two-out, three-run home run to left field. Corona, despite getting five hits, went on for an 8-3 victory last Saturday night at JSerra High.
The game marked the debut of junior pitcher Noah Dabela, a transfer from Orange Lutheran High, and the first batter he faced, he struck out Anthony Murphy on three pitches. After that, it wouldn’t be the same as he walked Ethan Bingaman and Seth Hernandez around a groundout before Carlson’s dinger.
But it wasn’t Corona’s explosive offense, which has averaged one home run per game, that hurt the Matadores as much as the defense. La Mirada, which entered the game with seven errors and had not made an error in the previous three games, made a season-high four errors.
“Let’s call it what it is; we’ve been playing really clean defense and pitching and tonight, you’re going to have nights like that,” said La Mirada head coach Jimmy Zurn. “You can’t do that against a team like [Corona].”
In the next inning, again with two outs, Dabela hit Murphy on a one-strike pitch and balked him to second. A wild pitch moved Murphy to third where he would score on the first of the four errors. Carlson led off the third with a double to the right field gap and came home on a fielder’s choice from Jesiah Andrade. Dabela faced 15 batters, threw 53 pitches, gave up five runs, walked four, threw three wild pitches and hit a batter.
“Noah, I thought, had a lot of pitches when he was ahead in the count that were easy takes for the hitter,” said Zurn. “That’s an area where he will clean up. He’s going to be one of our guys [in the rotation], and I told him right now, I wouldn’t change a thing of what happened today.”
Any chance of the Matadores coming back in the game were washed away in the fourth as the defense made two more blunders with the Panthers collecting three more runs off one hit. Freshman Julian Pardinas walked Brady Ebel with one out and Hernandez beat out an infield hit. Carlson would then reach on an error before a fielder’s choice and a bases loaded hit by pitch plated Ebel and Hernandez. Carlson scored his team’s final run on a wild pitch.
Corona would be held in check over the final three innings as senior Donald Murray struck out two as part of a perfect fifth inning, sophomore Noah Lee, a transfer from Fullerton High, would walk two straight batters with one out before getting a pair of groundouts and senior Connor Jones, formerly of Mira Costa High, struck out three and gave up a double.
Meanwhile, Corona starting pitcher Jason Gerfers, in his second start of the season, retired the first seven batters he faced before he hit sophomore second baseman Ian Nunez, also making his La Mirada debut. Nunez, who came from Warren High, went to second on a wild pitch before being stranded there. In the fourth, senior shortstop Aiden Aguayo doubled to left field before a pair of strikeouts ended that threat.
It wasn’t until the sixth when the Matadores ended what would have been Corona’s bid for a 10th shutout. Junior catcher Justin Torres was safe on an infield single and Gerfers hit junior right fielder Noah Rodriguez on the first pitch. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch and after a strike out, Aguayo singled for La Mirada’s first tally. Two pitches later, a fielder’s choice from senior center fielder Travis Friend, who had the lone hit for the Matadores against Corona in a 10-1 loss on Mar. 4, brought home Rodriguez.
With one out in the seventh, Danny De La Torre walked senior left fielder Froy Serna, who would score with two outs when Torres was safe on an error.
“Our kids still showed some fight,” said Zurn. “I know they were really high on trying to break a state shutout record and this and that. I’m glad that we obviously could break that.
“I said from the get-go, our depth is a huge, huge plus for us,” he later said. “You saw it tonight; three sit-out period arms that…Connor was pumping in the seventh, Noah Lee was throwing well in the sixth and obviously Dabela started and didn’t have his best start, but that’s a good arm right there. We have good depth and like I said, we don’t have a problem putting a lot of guys in in different spots.”
Corona’s pitching staff entered the game having allowed 25 hits in 70 innings with a microscopic 0.10 earned run average, 106 strikeouts and 18 walks. The only run the Panthers had given up came in the bottom of the fifth inning in the championship game of the La Mirada classic. Since then, no one had scored against Corona in 49 consecutive innings.
“Look, we don’t have moral victories here at La Mirada,” said Zurn. “We don’t believe in that. I have a very good feeling that we’ll probably run into them once or twice more and hopefully we’ll play a little bit better next time.”
In the semifinals last Thursday night, La Mirada gave co-host Mater Dei High, ranked second in the state and sixth nationally, its first loss in a 10-2 decision. Junior Kaden Corns pitched a complete game, scattering six hits, struck out nine and walked one in picking up his first victory.
“Incredible,” said Zurn of his performance. “It’s something you’ve probably seen time and time again. At this juncture, if you have a Kaden Corns ready to go in the semifinal, you’re in really good shape. He’s just the type of kid…he didn’t want the ball taken out of his hand. He was in complete control from start to finish.”
The Matadores scored in the top of the first inning as Jayden Vasquez walked senior designated hitter Maverek Russell on four pitches and scored on a sacrifice fly from Aguayo. With the score tied 1-1, the Matadores added four runs in the third on just a pair of hits.
With one out, Russell singled, and Vasquez walked senior right fielder Kevin Jeon. Following a line-out from Aguayo, Friend was hit by a pitch and senior first baseman Jason Rodriguez singled in a pair before sophomore third baseman Bear Calvo reached on an error, allowing Friend and Jason Rodriguez to come home.
The big blow came in the next inning when the Matadores collected five more hits with Russell smacking a home run over the right center fence. Friend and Jason Rodriguez would also have run-scoring base hits. The final La Mirada run came in the sixth when Friend’s second hit of the game plated junior pinch hitter Aaron Sykes.
“We want to keep pressure on teams, and obviously, it started from the start,” said Zurn. “Maverek walks, Kevin doubles; second and third, and Aguayo smokes that ball [to right field]. Offensively, we’ve been starting to come into our own. We got off to a slow start, but we’ve seen really good arms this year, and I like the way we’re playing right now.
“If you look at our lineup, we had contributions up and down the lineup,” he added. “[Senior catcher Jacob] Celiz, our nine hitter, gets a big hit for an RBI. Froy, our seven hitter, is getting on base hitting balls hard. On defense, people preach nine on one. Well, we preach nine on one offensively [with] everybody in our lineup being a tough out and just contributing their piece.”
Meanwhile, Corns had not allowed a hit until Brandon Thomas singled with one out in the fourth. He would hit Dylan Wetzel four pitches later and gave up a single to Lawson Olmstead with two outs to load the bases. But he settled down to get C.J. Ciampa to strikeout looking to end the threat. Corns would allow four hits, including a sixth inning home run from Wetzel over the final 12 batters he faced.
“Big time guys step up in big time moments, and he made some really quality pitches,” said Zurn. “He’s able to locate three pitches in any count. So I think that’s what makes his fastball jump on you a little bit more. He just buckled down when we needed him to.”
The Matadores began the tournament on Mar. 25 against Birmingham High and went to work early, as the first four batters reached, then scored on a grand slam from Friend. After the first out was recorded, senior left fielder Win Gurney, another transfer from Mira Costa making his La Mirada debut, was walked by Allan Olmos and Calvo sent a ball over the left field fence for a 6-0 lead.
That was more than enough for junior Jacob Oropeza, who allowed two hits and struck out four over five innings of work. The next day, the Matadores defeated Huntington Beach High 4-1 as Jeon went two for two, scored twice and drove in three runs while sophomore pitcher Luke Armijo went five innings, allowed four hits and struck out four.
The Boras Classic marked the first of four straight weeks in which the Matadores will play four games. La Mirada will host Downey High on Tuesday to resume Gateway League action and visit the Vikings on Wednesday before travelling to Warren on Thursday to end the season-series with the Bears. The season-series with Downey ends on Apr. 4 before the Matadores travel to Cary, North Carolina to participate in the National High School Invitational, put on by USA Baseball, where they will face Venice High on Apr. 9. It’s possible that La Mirada could see Corona again out there. A fourth meeting this season with the Panthers isn’t out of the question if they meet in the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 playoffs. La Mirada and Corona have now split four games since 2023.
“First off, much respect to [Corona],” said Zurn. “They’re very deserving of that honor [of being number one in the nation] right now and I think if [Corona head coach Andy] Wise had it his way, he would say the same thing in terms of it’s not where you’re at in the middle of the year. It’s where you want to be at the end of the year. We’re very deserving of our national ranking right now. Obviously, we’ve lost twice to the number one team in the country, and we’ve played these guys a lot, and we’ve been on the right side of those games.”
When the Matadores return home, they will face Gahr High for three games (Apr. 15, 16, 18) and West Ranch High on Apr. 19.
“That’s the beauty of us being in the position of getting invited to these tournaments,” said Zurn. “Next week was supposed to be a three-game week, but we’re making up a league rainout. Our kids will be geeked up for league and our kids will be geeked up to go to North Carolina, and then we have Gahr. They’ll be excited; they’ll be ready.”
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