To understand what fans, players and scouts are experiencing while watching the No. 1-ranked Corona High baseball team, all you need to do is listen to what people are saying.
“Best team I’ve ever seen.”
“No. 1 team in America.”
“They have no weaknesses.”
If the Dodgers are baseball’s top professional team, the Panthers continue to be their equivalent at the high school level. They are 11-0 and won the Boras Classic South championship on Friday night with an 8-3 victory over La Mirada. The team’s pitching staff has thrown shutouts in nine of 11 games, with La Mirada (10-2) the only opponent to score against them twice in losses.
“It is amazing,” coach Andy Wise said. “It’s a great run.”
Wise jokes that he has been calling the pitches for the first time in five years, so it must have been the fault of catcher Josh Springer, now in pro ball, for the Panthers not reaching such previous heights.
In truth, the Panthers were a little disappointed on Friday night as their bid to tie a state record with a seventh consecutive shutout ended in the sixth inning when Aiden Aguayo delivered an RBI single for La Mirada.
“You messed up our streak,” first baseman Seth Hernandez told Aguayo while they talked at first base.
“I had to bro,” Aguayo replied.
The depth of the pitching staff combined with having perhaps the best fielding shortstop in amateur baseball in Billy Carlson has created an environment that will make it difficult to beat the Panthers. The challenge is taking advantage of the rare opportunities that present themselves.
Against Santa Margarita on Wednesday, Hernandez, the Panthers’ star pitcher, was finally looking human in the third inning of a 1-0 game. The Eagles had runners on second and third bases with one out and the count 3-and-1 when Wise went to the mound to have a talk with Hernandez. When the game resumed, Hernandez recorded consecutive strikeouts to end the threat. Corona won 5-0 and Hernandez finished with 13 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings. He has not given up a run in 19 1/3 innings with 40 strikeouts and two walks.
Hernandez, expected to be taken among the top three players in baseball’s amateur draft this summer, is 13-0 in his high school career that began only last season. He previously was home schooled. Last year he and Ethan Schiefelbein, the 72nd player taken in the draft last summer by the Detroit Tigers, were a dynamic one-two punch as starters with Carlson as the closer.
Hernandez is even more polished this season. Yes, scouts love to see their radar gun hitting 98 mph, but Hernandez is best when his nasty slider at 86 mph is working.
“He’s really good,” Santa Margarita shortstop Gavin Spiridonoff said. “There’s a reason he’s going to make a lot of money.”
This season, Hernandez and transfers Ethin Bingaman and Jason Gerfers form a dominant pitching trio. Gerfers gave up three hits in six innings with no walks on Friday. There’s also developing sophomore Mason Sims and senior Jayden Daya, each of whom have played major roles in yielding just four runs in 11 games.
“It’s almost like their pitchers challenge each other,” JSerra coach Brett Kay said.
Carlson, also a possible top five draft pick, hit a three-run home run in the first inning on Friday. After rounding the bases with a big smile, he celebrated by leaping into a circle of teammates next to the dugout who were ready to catch him.
If you haven’t seen the Panthers this season to be oohed and aahed, don’t worry. It’s only nearing midseason with plenty of games left.
“Probably one of the best teams I’ve seen in four years,” Aguayo, a UCLA commit, said of the Panthers.
And what will it take to finally beat them?
“We have to play perfect baseball,” he said.