Prep Baseball Season Preview
A look at all 8 area teams ahead of Wednesday’s 1st pitch of the year
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Two of the Big 12’s most powerful offenses collided when No. 8 Kansas hosted Oklahoma. Only one lived up to the hype, though.
Devonte Graham had 23 points and seven assists, Malik Newman added 20 points and No. 8 Kansas beat Oklahoma 104-74 on Monday night in its first true blowout of the Big 12 season.
The Jayhawks (22-6, 11-4 Big 12) controlled things early, jumping out to a 10-0 lead less than four minutes into the game and forcing Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger to burn a timeout before the first media break. The Sooners (16-11, 6-9 Big 12) never recovered.
Kameron McGusty led the way for Oklahoma with 22 points while Jamuni McNeace added 18 in his first career start.
It was a cold shooting night for Trae Young, who missed 10 of his 13 shots and had a career-low 11 points. He led the game with nine assists.
Six Jayhawks scored in double figures, and the team broke the 100-point threshold for the first time since December.
The Yuma area has been heavily represented in the AIA’s postseason for baseball the last two years.
Two years ago, seven of eight area teams qualified. Last year, five made it back.
And though some very big names have moved on, the expectation this year is that the area as a whole will continue to be very competitive.
The season officially begins Wednesday for Kofa/Yuma High (vs. each other) and Antelope (vs. Salome), while Cibola, San Luis, Gila Ridge and Yuma Catholic will open AIA play next week after participating in out-of-town tournaments later this week. San Pasqual, meanwhile, opens Friday at Antelope.
Here is a look at the area’s eight baseball teams:
6A Southern
• Coach: Larsen Jones (2nd year) • Opener: Thursday at Adam Donnenfield Tourney
• Last season: Cibola (10-9 AIA, 3-4 region) earned a 6A play-in round home game as the No. 16 seed, but lost to Boulder Creek. Locally, the Raiders went 2-0 against Yuma High, 2-1 against Gila Ridge, and 1-2 against both Kofa and San Luis.
• All-6A Southern returners: Senior OF Joaquin Martinez (1st team), senior 2B Ricky Munoz (2nd), senior SS/P David Cuadros (2nd), junior P Martin Franco (2nd), senior P/INF Izaak Varela (HM)
• The lowdown: Cibola has a strong senior class, and though Jones certainly hopes that translates into big things, he knows that’s not a given.
“Truthfully the thing with experience is you’ve got to take every game as it comes, they’ve got to perform in the moment regardless of (what they’ve done in) the past,” Jones said. “You can’t become complacent with it.”
Martin Franco, a junior in school but senior by eligibility, and Izaak Varela were the Raiders’ top two starting pitchers statistically a year ago, and Jones said the success this year starts with them: “They’ve got to have big years,” Jones said.
Cibola returns three other regular starting position players in Joaquin Martinez, Ricky Munoz and David Cuadros. Martinez is a twotime Yuma Sun all-region selection who’s hit above .370 both of those years, while Munoz was selected last year after batting .361.
6A Southern
• Coach: Richy Leon (15th year) • Opener: Wednesday at Yuma High
• Last season: Kofa (12-8 AIA, 4-3 region), which went 7-3 in local AIA games, finished No. 13 in the 6A state rankings and then rallied to beat Alhambra in the playin round before losing at No. 6 Perry. • All-6A Southern returners: Senior P Nick Rehkopf (2nd team), senior C Allen Andrade (2nd), senior 1B Danny Urbieta (2nd)
• The lowdown: The Kings lost four former Yuma Sun all-region selections/multi-year starters off last year’s team, and Leon said the Kings have “a little different ball club than what we’ve had the past few years.”
“We just have a different type of personnel, but that could be a positive, as well,” he said. “We’re a little more interchangeable this year, can move guys around to different positions. But (less) athleticism will be the biggest difference.”
Pitching-wise, the Kings return two of their top three starters in seniors Robert Martinez and Nick Rehkopf. Leon feels good about the front-end of the rotation, but said the biggest question mark the staff faces is who will step up out of the bullpen.
Jesus Roldan and Alexis Torres are two varsity returners who Leon said should have bigger roles this year.
6A Southern
• Coach: Cesar Castillo (12th year) • Opener: Thursday at Laveen Classic
• Last season: The Sidewinders (15-4 AIA, 5-2 region) posted their highest AIA-winning percentage ever, won the “YUHSD title” for the third year in a row, shut out No. 7 Sunnyside in the 6A Southern region championship game and earned a top-four seed at state for the first time. But to open the 6A state tournament, they lost a 13-inning classic to No. 13 Boulder Creek.
• All-6A Southern returners: Junior INF/P Gerardo Hernandez (1st team), senior UTL David Mota (1st), junior UTL/P Alexis Castaneda (2nd), senior 1B/C Omar Campa (HM), senior 2B/ RHP Arturo Gil (HM), senior INF Daniel Ortega (HM), senior Hernan Yanez (HM)
• The lowdown: San Luis has some very big names to replace. Two-time Yuma Sun Player of the Year Ramon Miranda is now at Arizona Western. Gabriel Ponce, the best pitcher in the area last year, is now at the University of San Diego. And two-time all-region infielder Jesus Pulido is now at Yavapai.
But the Sidewinders do have the large aforementioned group of returners, headlined by Gerardo Hernandez, who last season hit .427 as the Sidewinders’ two-hole hitter en route to being named Yuma Sun all-region. And coaches across the area still view San Luis as the team to beat.
“San Luis is always going to be there just because they have a lot of baseball players every year, and they don’t rebuild, they reload,” said one of those coaches, Gila Ridge’s James Kuzniak.
San Luis’ Castillo was not reachable for this story.
4A Southwest
• Coach: James Kuzniak (1st year) • Opener: Thursday at Adam Donnenfield Tourney
• Last season: Gila Ridge (7-11 AIA, 4-4 region) finished third in the five-team Southwest region and No. 32 in the 44-team 4A state rankings.
• All-4A Southwest returners: Senior C/OF Ramces Urias (1st team), senior SS Gimo Dukes (1st), junior C/OF Ryan Hoskins (1st), junior P/2B Andres Cota (2nd), sophomore 3B Dominick Avila (HM), junior OF Jordan Canales (HM)
• The lowdown: Kuzniak takes over for Greg Osowski, the program’s only other head coach previously, and inherits a still-somewhat-young but talented roster loaded with experience.
“They took their lumps last year, but we were in a lot of games,” said Kuzniak, who spent six years as an assistant under Osowski. “This could be the year we take the next step.”
Andres Cota anchors the pitching staff and last year posted one of the best ERAs in the area among starters at 1.86. His battery mate Ramces Urias was the team’s lone Yuma Sun all-region selection, while Ryan Hoskins and Dominick