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Sports

Bay League Title Equals Bye for Mira Costa

The baseball team opens the CIF playoffs Friday against the winner of the wild-card game between San Marcos and Nipomo, but nothing will come easily in the Division 2 bracket

Winning the Bay League championship got Mira Costa's baseball team a bye to open the CIF Division 2 playoffs, and Coach Cassidy Olson and at least some of the Mustangs will spend it on the road trekking north to Santa Barbara on Tuesday to watch San Marcos and Nipomo in the wild-card round.

The 108 miles, even on L.A. freeways, don't figure to be anywhere near as taxing as a deep playoff run in what arguably is the toughest of the seven divisions in the CIF Southern Section.

The Mustangs will open the playoffs at home Friday against the winner of that game between 14-10 San Marcos, the No. 2 team from the Channel League, and 13-13 Nipomo, an at-large team from the Pac-7 league. If they get past that game, Mira Costa would play the winner of a Friday game between Cypress, the Empire League champion, and the winner of a wild-card game between Woodbridge and Burbank Burroughs.

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Cypress is the No. 4 seed in Division 2.

''You have to go through everyone if you want to get far,'' said Olson, who steered the Mustangs through a 5-11 start to a league championship in his first season at the school. ''It'll be tough, but we got what we want. You can't do any more than win league and get a home game [in the first round of the playoffs].''

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The Mustangs have to like their chances, after beating Palos Verdes twice last week to finish Bay League play 9-1. The pitching has been there all season behind Robert Parucha, who will start the postseason opener, Drew Van Orden and Lucas Whitehill; all three have ERAs in the twos, which sets them apart from many teams in the playoffs.

''We all feel really good,'' Parucha said. ''Our hitting looks good. Our pitching is good. Our defense in the beginning of the year wasn't our strong point and now it is. We've just got to stay mentally tough, and I think we're going to be fine.''  

''It did take a really long time [for it to come together], but I'd rather have it all fall together right now as opposed to starting out 10-0 and then just tanking at the end.''

The Mustangs' defense has been much better of late, and the offense proved that it can manufacture runs in tough situations, taking two from the Sea Kings.

''Offensively, I like the way things came down the last week, because when we blew people out the beginning of league and we're hitting two or three home runs a game, that's nice, but it's not that realistic against good pitching,'' Olson said.

''So, having seven- or eight-hit games, beating good pitching from Palos Verdes where everyone chipped in, is right where you want to be. [Bret] Collins had some big hits. Of course, Lucas and Jake [Jelmini] did. [Kris] Cayton had a great week last week. He struggled the week before. But it's a good position to be in. In the playoffs, you're not going to blow people out, you have to have the bottom of the lineup come through and that's what happened last week. We feel real good about the position that everybody is in right now.''

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