CIF-SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISION 7 BASEBALL PLAYOFFS: Albidrez dominant in third straight complete game as Norwalk moves on to quarterfinals

May 21, 2026

By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

GARDEN GROVE-If it’s his last outing as a high school pitcher, then Norwalk High senior Daniel Albidrez put on another classic performance in the CIF-Southern Section Division 7 playoffs. Albidrez went the distance for the second time in less than a week and sixth this season as the second-seeded Lancers knocked off Garden Grove High 4-1 this past Tuesday. Norwalk, the third place team in the Mid-Cities League, improved to 17-7 and will travel to Arroyo High, co-champions of the Mission Valley League, for a quarterfinal tilt on Friday.

“Oh man, it’s exciting; it’s fun but I’m very tired, I’ll tell you that,” exhaled Albidrez. “Throwing on Thursday and today…all the adrenalines just kept me going. All I can say is it’s a lot of fun.”

“Daniel has been our horse; we’ve lost a lot of one-run games in our league, just to tough teams, but he got our MVP this year,” said Norwalk head coach Jose Rodriguez. “He’s been our guy, and he just stuck with his fastball. They couldn’t catch up to it.”

The first sign of trouble for Albidrez came in the bottom of the first inning when he hit his counterpart, Manny Martinez, with one out and walked Mario Salas on four straight pitches. Then he allowed a base hit to Walker Bass to load the bases before striking out Frank Lam. He threw the next two pitches to Jayden Peraza for strikes before Salas was caught stealing third.

But in the second, the Argonauts got to Albidrez, who has allowed nine runs in his last six games since Apr. 3, going 4-2 in those contests. It began when Peraza drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on a sacrifice from Diego Serrano. Morrisey Delatorre then reached on an error, allowing Peraza to come home. After that, Albidrez was nearly lights out.

“In the beginning, I was getting really frustrated,” said Albidrez. “I wasn’t getting anything on the corners. Obviously, I was just trying to go over the middle; no off-speed, just fastball. If I throw it down the middle, they’re going to swing the bat. Groundballs helps the pitch count. That was my plan the while time until the end.”

“I believe we kind of made that decision when they started bunting,” said Rodriguez. “I felt like he was just blowing the fastball by guys. They were looking for other alternatives. I told my guys we just needed to get him some runs, take care of the baseball and we would get this game.

“The turning point for them was they bunted the ball and manufactured a run, and then us getting out of the third inning and getting a zero was a big momentum,” he later said.

Albidrez gave up an infield hit to Khai Anderson with two outs, but Sebastian Barron was caught stealing to end the frame and walked Martinez to lead off the third before striking out the next seven batters and retiring 11 straight before Lam singled to right on the first pitch with two outs in the sixth. Albidrez then retired the next four on eight pitches to end the game and finished the contest with 10 strikeouts and threw 98 pitches, wiping out any chance of him coming back on Friday at any point.

“I was just in the zone; I was there, I was feeling it,” said Albidrez. “I felt great, and it was just me and my catcher. That was it.”

“He’s a guy who we train; we do bullpen [sessions] twice a week,” said Rodriguez. “We were trying to save him, so they kind of forced the issue where we had to leave him in there. We were trying to save him for Friday, so now we have to go with our other pitchers.”

While Albidrez was doing his thing on the mound, the Lancers were squandering chances to score in the early part of the contest. Martinez walked sophomore shortstop Jared Brammer to begin the game. But on the next pitch, on what looked like a bunt and run situation, sophomore left fielder Isaiah Medina popped up to Martinez, who threw to first to complete the double play. The Lancers stranded six runners over the next four innings, half standing at third base while collecting six hits.

“We mentioned in the dugout that we will be working on our bunting and manufacturing runs because we had the opportunities to chip away early and get some runs to our pitcher…and we weren’t able to capitalize,” said Rodriguez. “But I’m glad the sticks came through in the second half of the game.”

With Anderson, who replaced Martinez in the second inning, now on the mound, senior catcher Corey Brammer began the sixth by reaching on an error and was safe at second when senior first baseman Jesus Sanchez was safe on a fielder’s choice. On the next pitch, sophomore center fielder David Pelayo singled to load the bases and two batters later, sophomore third baseman Marcus Castillo drove in Brammer with a base hit to left.

Junior second baseman David Ibarra’s sacrifice fly brought in Sanchez and on a one-strike call. Jared Brammer iced the game with a two-run single to right field.

Pelayo went three for four while Jared Brammer and Sanchez each added a pair of hits as the Lancers are now in the quarterfinals for the second straight season under Rodriguez, who took over for William Wenrick, who had been the program’s head coach the previous 10 seasons. Norwalk also went to the quarterfinals in 1999 and 2023.

“For the guys and building a program, it’s big; it’s big for our school,” said Rodriguez. “It’s big for our baseball program and it’s big for the guys who are going to be here next year as well.”