Sailors capture tourney crown

NEWPORT BEACH — Just after the Newport Harbor High baseball team won the Foothill division title in the Newport Elks Tournament, senior Dillan Freiberg talked about the great vibes coming from the new coach.

Patrick Murphy has made a remarkable first impression.

“I love him,” Freiberg said after the Sailors beat Martin Luther King of Riverside, 9-1, Saturday. “We’re 5-0. I can’t complain at all. He’s doing his job. I don’t have one bad thing to say about him.”

Newport Harbor is all about hot starts in 2010. That showed against the Wolverines (4-1). With five runs in the first inning — powered by home runs from Matt Carpenter and Steve Guerin — the Sailors went on their way to a 5-0 start.

“I hope every inning is like that for us,” said Carpenter, a sophomore first baseman who hammered a three-run home run over the fence in left field in the first inning. “We’ve come together so much more as a team. This year everyone talks to each other and hangs out outside of baseball too. We feel like much more of a family. We feel like we are pushing each other more now.”

Murphy, who was a pitching coach at Los Alamitos the past two seasons, has been the source of the Sailors’ rise. He was part of the Griffins’ Sunset League title in his first year with that program. He’s also no stranger to reclamation projects. When he was the head coach at Valley Christian of Cerritos in 2007, he led that program to a 20-10 campaign, 13 more wins than the season before.

When he was at Magnolia in 2002, he inherited a two-win team and had that squad finish with 15 victories.

Now at Newport Harbor, where the community is abuzz about the coach and the school’s gorgeous diamond improvements, Murphy is already halfway toward surpassing last year’s win total, as the Sailors went 9-16 last season.

“I’m really excited,” Murphy said about his team’s undefeated start. “I think our guys are buying into our system. They’re getting excited and their confidence is growing. I couldn’t be happier.”

Murphy went right to work after being hired in late July. He said he has used simple concepts. He wants the players to concentrate on executing the fundamentals. He wants them to compete as a team, with each player fulfilling their role.

“We had a plan since September, how we wanted to go about the spring and the kids have bought in,” Murphy said. “We still have a lot of work to do. Our league, as everyone knows, is challenging.”

The Sailors will try to improve upon a 5-10 record in the Sunset League last year. Preparing with a tournament championship sure doesn’t hurt their cause.

Against the Wolverines, they used their bats, as they compiled 10 hits. Seniors Alex Maddox and Austin Wobrock, as well as Carpenter and Guerin had two hits each, while senior Blake Davey and Freiberg added one hit apiece.

Maddox, the leadoff hitter, stole two bases and scored two runs. Freiberg, who has recovered quickly since he sustained a fractured left fibula during soccer in January, had a double and a run batted in.

Davey also had an RBI, and Wobrock had a double, stolen base and an RBI.

Sophomore pitcher Chase Kapana allowed just two hits, as he shut out MLK in four innings.

Reliever Max Gerard worked two innings, striking out three, while giving up one hit and one run.

Parker Jones closed it out with a strikeout in his scoreless seventh inning.

The Sailors will try to increase their winning streak in a doubleheader against Back Bay rival Corona del Mar Tuesday, starting at 12:30 p.m.