Oilers conquer the National

The Huntington Beach Oiler baseball team won a national tournament over the weekend and now has an even bigger honor: the top ranking in The Orange County Tribune’s High 5 baseball poll.

The orange-and-black are 12-6 against tough competition and are ranked 12th in the nation. Victory came when the Oilers scored seven runs in the ninth inning to defeat JSerra 8-1 in the National High School Invitational final in Cary, North Carolina on Saturday.

Named to the all-tournament team were Oilers Tyler Bellerose, Dean Carpenter and Ralphy Velazquez.

With the win, Huntington Beach displaced last week’s top rated team, Pacifica. The Mariners (14-2) are second. The rest of the High Five is Garden Grove (12-5), Westminster (10-2) and Ocean View (10-7).

It’s worth noting that those three are in the Golden West League, so it should be a real scramble for the league pennant.

On the softball side, Marina (17-3) fell from the top spot with an 8-0 loss to Huntington Beach on Saturday.

The new High 5 is Pacifica (10-5), Huntington (10-4), Marina, Ocean View (10-5) and Garden Grove (8-4). On the bubble is Los Amigos (4-2-1).

Note to readers: All records noted here are based on results as the week starts.

Diamonds not all that’s precious

Local high school teams are doing well in CIF-SS polls for baseball and softball, but also stand up well in boys’ tennis, boys’ volleyball, girls’ lacrosse and girls’ beach volleyball.

Here are the CIF-SS polls as released on Monday.

Baseball

• Division 1: Huntington Beach is fifth; Pacifica is ninth
• Division 6: Garden Grove is third; Westminster is fourth
• Division 7: Magnolia is unranked but received some votes

Softball

• Division 1: Pacifica is fifth; Huntington Beach is seventh
• Division 5: Westminster is unranked but received some votes
• Division 7: Los Amigos is sixth

Boys’ tennis

• Division 2: Edison is second; Huntington Beach is third
• Division 4: Rancho Alamitos is third
• Division 5: Garden Grove is second

Boys’ volleyball

• Division 1: Huntington Beach is fourth; Edison is eighth
• Division 5: Magnolia is unranked but received some votes

Girls’ lacrosse

• Divisions 1 and 2: Edison is fifth
• Division 3: Huntington Beach is first

Girls’ beach volleyball

• Division 1: Edison is unranked but received some votes.

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