The Dream Still Hasn’t Died for Cypress Baseball Coach Steinert

Mark Steinert is nervous.

His Cypress baseball team passed the school record for victories two weeks ago. It’s now 18 and counting. Students are starting to talk.

The Centurions have a 14-game winning streak. Teachers are shaking my hand.

Bobby Brito hit his 10th home run. Stop there, please.

Phil Seibel pitched his second no-hitter. No, wait, that’s too much.

The program’s first league title is there for the taking. Don’t let me wake up. Don’t let me wake up.

Yet every time Steinert pinches himself, it hurts.

Two years ago, his first Centurion team went 1-14 in the Empire League. Now they are A-No. 1, king of the hill, top of the heap . . . well, you get the picture. But start spreading the news? Forget it.

What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams? Keep it to yourself. That’s a little hard in the Empire League, where the third-ranked Centurions have a two-game lead with four games left. Two of those games will be against second-place Katella. Ah, but that showdown is a week away and Steinert is rather nearsighted on these matters.

“We don’t look past Wednesday’s game against Loara,� he said. “We don’t even talk about Friday’s game. We coach one game at a time. We go one inning at a time.�

It is, after all, his first league title race. Steinert has reason to be a bit edgy. This is the Cypress’ baseball program we’re talking about here. Nothing comes easy.

It has gone beyond swimming in the shallow end of the talent pool. Strange things have happened. Balls bounced funny. Hits landed just fair. Fly balls got lost in the clouds. Ground balls got lost in the sun. Higher forces always seemed to be at work.

It’s an easy rhythm to accept. Take last year. Cypress made the playoffs and drew top-seeded Long Beach Millikan in the first round. Hey, it happens.

Still, the score was tied, 2-2. Of course, along the way two Cypress runners were thrown out at home. Hey, it happens.

Then, in the bottom of the seventh, a Millikan player slapped an 0-2 pitch into right field, scoring a runner from second. Sure, it happens.

And still Steinert has most of his hair.

Three weeks ago, El Dorado jumped to a 3-0 lead in the second inning. That old siren song started humming.

“I thought that maybe this was the game,� Steinert said. “It had happened in the past.�

Cypress rallied and won, 6-3.

A week later, Kennedy took a 9-7 lead into the bottom of the 10th.

“The streak was at 11 games and it had been nice,� Steinert said.

J.R. Johnson hit three-run homer and Cypress won.

“Things, for once, have gone our way,� Steinert said.

But there’s more here than the high school baseball gods a-smilin’. These comebacks are a little easier when you have six returning starters and the hottest pitcher in Orange County.

Seibel is 9-0 after Friday’s no-hitter against Century, during which he struck out 15.

Brito, a four-year starter, has clubbed home runs through the past mediocrity. No. 10 on Friday gave him 26 for his career, two shy of the county record. But these days, that power seems to mean a little more.

There are others.

Shortstop Nate Endicott made 20 errors last season. He has two through 21 games this season. Outfielder Jason Ball had three at-bats last season, but is hitting .350 this year. Third baseman Ryan Dinley . . . pitcher/outfielder Dan Alvillare . . . outfielder Matt Shelton.

When you get down to it, they are the stuff that dreams are made of.