Mason Sims leads Corona baseball team past Santiago, into Division 1 quarterfinals
CORONA - Mason Sims didn’t have trouble finding his groove Tuesday afternoon.
Sims, a junior southpaw, fanned the first six batters and finished with a four-hitter and 12 strikeouts as the Corona baseball team defeated Santiago 6-1 in an elimination game and advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.
The Panthers (23-7) finished second in Pool D and now will travel to Pool A winner Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (22-8) on Friday.
“Just a great feel for what he wanted to do and execution of what he wanted to do,” Panthers coach Andy Wise said about Sims. “It’s never a ‘stuff’ thing with him. It’s learning how to manage himself and have full composure. Mason’s a guy who needs to tone himself down usually, and today it looked like he was on cruise control Fantastic stuff, trusting his abilities and letting it happen.”
Last week, Sims made the first postseason appearance of his career. It was an up-and-down afternoon dealing with a tight zone. He allowed only three hits over four innings of work, but nine free bases (six walks and three hit batters) led to three runs scoring.
Tuesday was a different story, as Sims showed solid command of his fastball, curve and change-up and issued no free passes.
“I struggled last week. I think my emotions were getting in the way of how I was performing,” said Sims, who improved to 6-0 on the season and lowered his ERA to 1.39. “This week, I was trying to come in and stay mentally strong. And obviously it worked.”
Santiago (19-12) sent 6-foot-6 Striker Pence to the mound Tuesday afternoon, and the hard-throwing righty matched zeroes with Sims for three innings, Pence allowed one hit during that stretch and rolled inning-ending plays in the second and third innings.
Corona finally broke through in the top of the fourth inning, Trey Ebel drew a leadoff walk, moved to second on a ground ball and then stole third base. Logan Pascarella lifted a high fly ball to right field, deep enough to bring home Ebel for the game’s first run.
Then the Panthers decided to play home run derby in the fifth inning.
Joseph Flores Jr. led things off with a solo homer. Romeo De La Torre walked, and then Anthony Murphy mashed a two-run blast to left field. The launch angle of Murphy’s bat flip might have matched his 11th round-tripper of the season and 35th of his career.
Troy Randall took over for Pence, but Danny De La Torre smacked a solo homer over the wall in left field for the Panthers’ third long ball of the inning. Pascarella doubled and later scored Corona’s fifth run of that frame on a sacrifice fly by Jesiah Andrade.
“Even down 1-0, we’re feeling pretty good,” Santiago coach Ty De Trinidad said. “Then everything snowballed in that one inning. We just weren’t able to put much together at the plate, and you can’t win games like this unless you can put some runs up there.
“Credit to Sims because he pitched his tail off today. That’s the best I’ve ever seen him. And I know there more of those in him.”
Santiago collected three consecutive singles off Sims to load the bases with one out in the sixth inning. But the Sharks managed to score only one run on a sacrifice fly by Randall. Sims got Josh Angulo to ground out to first base to minimize the damage.
Sims retired the side in order in the seventh for his first complete game of the season and third of his career.
“Once it got to the fifth inning, I said, ‘yeah I’m going all seven,’” Sims said.
Santiago freshman shortstop Jayden Ramirez went 2 for 2 against Sims and was the lone Santiago starter not to strike out.
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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 12:53 AM.