The best baseball league in Orange County this year? It probably would be the South Coast League. Maybe the Trinity League, if you don't mind including non-county St. John Bosco of Bellflower in your assessment.

The county league with the most teams in the CIF-Southern Section quarterfinals Friday? The Pacific Coast League.

When new league alignments were created for this school year, an excellent Pacific Coast League baseball group was created when Laguna Hills and San Juan Hills left to become part of the two-league Coast View Conference and Woodbridge moved to the Pacific Coast from the Sea View League.

This Pacific Coast has three teams in today's Division 3 quarterfinals – Beckman, University and Woodbridge. Beckman (23-5) is at Paloma Valley of Menifee (15-11), University (19-11) is home against Culver City (15-12-1) and Woodbridge (17-11) is at Rialto (19-6).

Those three Pacific Coast teams are 7-0 in the playoffs, and have beaten their opponents by a combined score of 29-5.

A fourth Pacific Coast playoff team, Northwood, beat Lancaster in the first round before losing in the second round to top-seeded Bonita of La Verne.

Woodbridge coach Tim Murray said if CIF-SS rules allowed it, a fifth PCL team might have also done well in the Division 3 playoffs.

"We should have had five teams in the playoffs, with Corona del Mar in there," Murray said. "Corona del Mar beat us twice." Corona del Mar also handed league champion Beckman one of its only two league losses (Northwood also beat Beckman in league play).

The CIF-SS rules for baseball, as created by the section's member schools and not, as uniformed opinion sometimes goes, by section officials, limit leagues to one at-large playoff team. CdM and University tied for fourth in the PCL with 7-8 league records, but tiebreaker criteria made University the league's No. 4 team.

Brandon Horth has been great hitting and pitching for Warriors, batting .466 with a team-high 26 RBIs and a 6-3 record and 0.93 ERA. Brennan Leitao, a transfer from Irvine, also is 6-3 and is batting .387 with 21 RBIs, and Ben Wylly, recently recovered from shoulder tendinitis, is 3-0 and batting .384 with 20 RBIs.

University's Jordan Scheftz, a sophomore transfer from Tarbut V'Torah, is 10-5 including a complete game Tuesday in the Trojans' 7-1 victory over Rancho Alamitos in the second round. Ian Barwick and Joppi Martin drove in two runs apiece Tuesday.

Beckman's James Kaprielian, among the county's top pitchers, shut out Downey on one hit in the first round and is 9-1.The Patriots' Zack Rivera and Justin Hazard have driven in 28 and 22 runs, respectively.

The Pacific Coast League, impressive enough already, would be even more so if it can go 3 for 3 in Friday's quarterfinals to occupy three of the fourth berths in Tuesday's semifinals.

As Murray said, "This has been a tough league all year."