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March 26, 2026
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
The Gateway League opened its 60-game season for 2026 this past Tuesday with the top two teams of the circuit over the past three seasons who have set the bar so high, and for the first time, they will not face each other in the final week of the regular season, or towards the end of the season when the stakes are at the highest. Gahr High and La Mirada High met for the 10th time as league members, 12th overall since 2006, with the latter having won six of the past nine league meetings.
That trend continued as the Matadores took advantage of some poor defense to score a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, then iced the game with two more tallies in the seventh as they posted a 5-1 victory.
“Obviously, we have great respect for Gahr, and I feel it’s mutual,” said La Mirada head coach Jimmy Zurn. “It’s been a good rivalry; this is our fourth year [in the Gateway League], and we knew it was going to come down to the little things like we talked about [after the game]. Some of our keys here was winning the little; that’s what we call it, winning the little stuff. I just thought getting off to a good start…letting us breathe a little bit, getting two in the first and one in the second. What good teams do is their pitching buckled down, but we executed; we put balls in play when we needed to do.”
Gahr senior pitcher Bryce Morrison began the game by striking out junior right fielder Michael Burgueno. But when the ball got past senior catcher Nathan Guangorena, it allowed La Mirada’s leadoff hitter to be safe at first. Freshman second baseman Blake Barberena then singled to right field on the next pitch before sophomore designated hitter Ian Nunez was safe on a double error, making it 1-0. A groundout from senior catcher Justin Torres brought in Barberena before Morrison ended the frame with back to back strikeouts.
“How about a strike three and the guy doesn’t catch the ball,” said Gahr head coach Gerardo Perez of the rocky start. “[Barberena] hits a first pitch, fast ball out over the plate, single to right field, and then we can’t get an out on a bunt. Then later in the game, we can’t get an out on [another] bunt.”
In the next inning, junior shortstop Jesse Colon singled to right on a full count, was sacrificed to second by junior third baseman Ian Aguayo and advanced to third when senior second baseman Aaron Sykes knocked a single off Morrison’s foot for an infield hit. Colon and Sykes would then work a double steal and just like that, the Matadores had a 3-0 lead.
That early advantage was good enough for junior pitcher Luke Armijo, who dodged one bullet after another from Gahr’s stellar lineup that produced 10 hits. Armijo worked into the fourth inning, yielding seven of the 10 hits the Gladiators got. He struck out four, walked none and allowed an unearned run in the third inning.
Gahr senior shortstop Andres Gonzalez led off the frame with a single to left on the 10th pitch he saw in the at-bat, went to second on an error, moved to third on a sacrifice fly from Guangorena and scored on a base hit from senior left fielder Oscar Grijalva for Gahr’s only run.
But Gahr couldn’t take advantage of the traffic it constantly had, stranding runners at first and second with one out in the second and the bases loaded in the fourth. In fact, senior second baseman Julian Lucero’s single to right with one out in the fourth chased Armijo from the mound.
“Luke competed; he gave us what he could,” said Zurn. “Then [senior first baseman Jacob] Oropeza, who hasn’t thrown as much as he had in the past, came in and was light’s out. He was amazing. He’s got the ability to throw three pitches at any time and his change-up is elite to where you could know it’s coming, and it’s still hard to layoff it.”
Oropeza worked the remainder of the game, retiring seven straight batters at one point including getting Guangorena to pop-up with the bases loaded in the third. Oropeza allowed a two-out single in the sixth to end that streak, and a two-out single in the seventh while striking out four of the 14 batters he faced.
“We just didn’t get the runners home,” said Perez. “I think we didn’t do a good job of adjusting to Oropeza, who changed speeds.”
“Two veteran guys who have been in those situations before,” said Zurn of Armijo and Oropeza. “So the ability to make big pitches in certain spots obviously was huge for those two, and then our defense behind them…we made two big defensive plays. But again, those two have been in those situations time and time again and can get themselves out of jams when we need to.”
The Matadores iced the game in the last inning when Aguayo led off with a double to the right field gap off junior Juan Carlos Munoz, followed by an infield single from Sykes and a run-scoring hit from Burgueno. Sykes would later score on a groundout from junior pinch hitter Joshua Angulo.
Morrison struck out seven batters in the four innings he worked, scattered five hits and did not walk a batter. He also had one of the 10 hits Gahr had while Gonzalez, Grijalva, Lucero and senior right fielder Anthony Ward all had a pair of hits.
“I think Bryce showed a lot because he easily could have let the [early] frustrations get to him, but he came back,” said Perez.
The teams met this past Wednesday at La Mirada and Gahr had a 7-1 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh before the Matadores rallied to win 8-7 on a bases loaded hit batter. La Mirada will go for its second sweep in three seasons when the league powers wrap us the series on Friday at Gahr. The Gladiators (5-6-1, 0-2), who went 2-1-1 in the Bishop Gorman Invitational prior to the La Mirada series, will then go to Bellflower High on Tuesday before hosting the Buccaneers the next day. La Mirada, which improved to 10-2, 2-0, will face Laguna Beach High on Saturday, Segerstrom High on Monday and San Dimas High on Tuesday in the Ryan Lemmon Tournament. The Matadores won all four games of the Anaheim Lions Tournament before facing Gahr, outscoring its opponents 22-6.
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