ORANGE – It was going to take an outstanding team with a great pitcher to take Orange County’s No. 1-ranked baseball team out of the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
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Norco was that team Friday, and Jordan Ayala was that pitcher.
Ayala shut out Orange Lutheran 3-0 in a CIF-SS Division 1 quarterfinal playoff game at Hart Park.
Ayala, a right-hander who started the school year as a sophomore and reclassified as a junior, allowed two hits and struck out 10 with no walks.
Norco (27-4) will be at home to face Notre Dame (24-8) of Sherman Oaks in the semifinals Tuesday.
Norco coach Gary Parcell said the win was typical for the Cougars, who won the Big VIII championship.
“Our team is built on pitching and defense,” he said. “We swung the bats really well early in the season and then we kind of went into a little bit of a lull. Our league has some good pitching and the Trinity League has good pitching. We played a pretty tough schedule, so we’ve seen a lot of it.”
Ayala improved to 7-1 this season and lowered his ERA to 0.71. He has 81 strikeouts in 78 innings.
Lancers coach RJ Farrell said he was proud of all that his team accomplished this season.
“Some days you just lose a baseball game, right?” he said. “The seniors are going to be missed. Everyone on the team gave it everything they had.”
Ayala also hit a home run to lead off the second inning. It was the game’s only run until Norco scored two unearned runs in the seventh inning.
Farrell was impressed by Ayala, who displayed a wicked slider and changed speeds.
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“He was really good today,” Farrell said. “He was landing the slider when he wanted to. He was out of the zone when he wanted to. We couldn’t get anything going, and once we had a couple of opportunities they were able to get out of it.”
Orange Lutheran starting pitcher Gary Morse, a senior right-hander who committed to Tennessee, was good, too. He allowed just one earned run, the Ayala home run, and struck out nine with two walks in 5 ⅔ innings.
Norco got seven hits off of him, but a couple of pickoffs, a double play and three inning-ending strikeouts kept the Cougars from expanding their lead.
Ayala pulled a pitch over the left-field fence in the top of the second for a 1-0 lead.
Two Orange Lutheran errors contributed to two Norco runs in the top of the seventh inning.
Ayala got the Lancers out 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh, including a game-ending strikeout.
Orange Lutheran got its first baserunner in the third inning when sophomore shortstop Zion Avina hit a two-out line-drive single through the middle.
Junior first baseman Jordan Kurz reached on an error with two outs in the fourth inning. Neither advanced to second base.
The Lancers had runners on first and second in the fifth. An Ayala strikeout ended that threat. Ayala retired the side in the sixth and seventh innings.
Orange Lutheran finished at 25-6. The Lancers were Orange County’s No. 1 team to start the season and are No. 1 in this week’s county rankings. They won the championships of the Boras Classic South, including a 4-1 win over Norco in the tournament final, and the National High School Invitational in North Carolina.
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The Lancers finished second to St. John Bosco in the Trinity League.