Oilers – no surprise! – are No. 1

The Huntington Beach Oiler baseball team has only played one game this 2025 season but it is already highly ranked nationally and – of course – in The Tribune’s baseball High 5.

The orange-and-black, ranked sixth in the nation and third in California, opened with an 8-3 win over Harvard Westlake.

They’ll be back in action on Thursday hosting a pretty good Fountain Valley (3-2) team and then visit district rival Marina (6-2), which is our third-ranked team for the West County area.

Edison (4-2) is rated second. In fourth is Ocean View (4-3) and Orange is fifth with a 4-3-1 mark. These records don’t reflect results of games scheduled on Tuesday, some of which may have been postponed due to wet weather.

Southern California claims many of the top prep baseball teams in the country. According to MaxPreps, at the top is Corona High (3-0).

Other area teams are La Mirada (seventh, 3-0), Santa Margarita (13th, 4-0) and Mater Dei (21st, 5-0).
Also highly-ranked are Laguna Beach (6-0), Corona del Mar (5-1), Foothill (6-2), Brea Olinda (5-1), Warren High of Downey (7-1), Los Alamitos (5-0-2), Mission Viejo (4-2), Servite (5-1) and Aliso Niguel (7-3).

Most teams have not yet begun league play, but some will play this week and others will play a split league season with some games before tournaments and some afterwards.