High School

No. 2 high school baseball prospect Seth Hernandez homers, collects six RBI in No. 1 Corona’s 22-0 win

Panthers score 10 runs in first inning, club four home runs to stay undefeated

Levi Payton

Corona's Seth Hernandez hit a three-run home run and finished with six RBI in the No. 1 Panthers' 22-0 win on Tuesday, April 1.
Corona's Seth Hernandez hit a three-run home run and finished with six RBI in the No. 1 Panthers' 22-0 win on Tuesday, April 1. / Heston Quan

Armed with a fastball that nears triple digits, Seth Hernandez is the top high school pitching prospect in the country. But it’s no day off for opponents when it’s someone else’s turn in the rotation. His bat also packs heat.

On April 1 against King, he wasn't fooling around.

In the top of the sixth inning of Tuesday’s game, Hernandez picked out a 2-0 fastball and launched it over the wall in right center to give the Panthers a 16-0 lead. A relentless team loaded with four of the country’s top 30 prospects, the No. 1 Panthers weren’t done.

Hernandez, Baseball America’s No. 2 high school MLB Draft prospect, would go on to drive in another run in Corona’s six-run seventh inning, punctuating a 22-0 win that improved the Panthers to 13-0 overall.

The senior finished 1-for-2 with two walks, the home run and six RBI – also driving in runs on a bases-loaded walk and two sacrifice flies. He’s now batting .381 (16-for-42) in 13 games with two doubles, one triple, four home runs, 16 RBI and an on-base percentage of .451.

Third baseman Brady Ebel, another top 30 prospect, hiked his batting average to .366 with four hits, including his fourth double of the season, and three RBI. Junior second baseman Trey Ebel homered, tripled and finished with three hits and four RBI.

Corona (California) High School infielder Brady Ebel is an LSU commit projected as an early pick in the 2025 MLB Draft.
Third baseman Brady Ebel, an LSU commit and one of the country's top MLB Draft prospects, led the No. 1 Panthers with four hits in Tuesday's win. / Heston Quan, SBLive

King (Riverside, Calif.) found out early that it was going to be a long day at the office. Junior center fielder Anthony Murphy crushed his team-leading fifth home run of the season on the fifth pitch of the game. Three pitches later, senior right fielder Ethin Bingaman, another of the country's top prospects, smashed his third homer of the year to make it 2-0.

After a fielder’s choice made it 3-0 and a single loaded the bases with one out, Trey Ebel connected on a 3-2 pitch. The grand slam, his second homer of the year, made it 7-0.

The Panthers’ leadoff man, Murphy finished 2-for-4 with two walks and is now batting .300 (15-for-50). Of his 15 hits, seven have gone for extra bases; one double, one triple and five home runs. Likewise, Bingaman has 13 hits so far this season, including eight that have gone for extra bases. He’s batting .295 with four doubles, one triple, three home runs and leads the team with 10 walks.

Sophomore right hander Mason Sims picked up the win with another dominant performance. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound right hander scattered two hits across four innings with seven strikeouts and no walks. He improved to 2-0 with the win and has yet to allow a run in six appearances. Across 18 innings so far, he’s allowed only eight hits (seven singles, one double) with 24 strikeouts and three walks.

When Hernandez does take the mound again, he’ll be in search of his fifth win. So far, he’s 4-0 and has yet to surrender a run. He’s already racked up 40 strikeouts and allowed just two walks and eight hits (seven singles, one double) in 19.1 innings.

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Published
Levi Payton
LEVI PAYTON

Levi’s sports journalism career began in 2005. A Missouri native, he’s won multiple Press Association awards for feature writing and has served as a writer and editor covering high school sports as well as working beats in professional baseball, NCAA football, basketball, baseball and soccer. If you have a good story, he’d love to tell it.

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