Former Orange Lutheran baseball coach Eric Borba is returning to Trinity League baseball as the coach at Servite.
Read more Orange County football preview 2026: Bravo League
Borba, 51, coached Orange Lutheran for 16 seasons. He resigned after the 2024 season, a few days after Orange Lutheran won the CIF Southern California Regional Division 1 championship.
At Servite he replaces Shawn Gilbert who resigned after this past season when the Friars finished 16-14 and were third in the six-team Trinity League with a 6-9 league record. Gilbert, who coached Servite for 12 seasons, left to spend more time with his family in Arizona.
Borba resigned at Orange Lutheran to create more time to watch his son Casey Borba play at the University of Texas where Casey Borba will be a senior this coming school year. Borba and his wife Cindy also have a daughter, Mackenna, who is a student at Auburn University.
Borba has been national director of the ZT Baseball youth sports organization the past two years.
Borba said he and Servite athletic director Matt Marrujo began discussing Borba’s possible interest in the Servite baseball position over the past two weeks.
Read more More than 50 decomposing bodies found in Chicago funeral home, officials say
“A lot of things had to be right,” Borba said Friday. “I’ve always admired the consistency and the standards Servite has had.”
And, Borba said, the opportunity to work again with a high school baseball program appealed to him.
“I love the impact a high school coach can make on players,” Borba said.
Servite has an on-campus baseball field, which Orange Lutheran does not. Orange Lutheran uses Hart Park in Orange for its baseball home games.
Borba is no stranger to an all-boys Catholic school like Servite. He attended all-boys Damien in La Verne and had coached at all-boys De La Salle in Concord.
Orange Lutheran during Borba’s tenure won three National High School Invitational championships and appeared in a national Top 25 in each of his final past 10 years, a trend that has continued under his Orange Lutheran successor RJ Farrell.
Read more Advocates for former US Marine held in Russia for more than 4 years say he is near death