VUSC Hires Corral as Lions Pitching Coach

Ruben Corral added to VU Baseball Staff for 2010

Coach Ruben Corral joins Ralph Grajeda and the Vanguard staff, bringing a 16-year professional history of playing, coaching and teaching the game of baseball to Vanguard University. Corral will serve as the Pitching Coach for Head Coach Ralph Grajeda. This is Coach Corral's second tour of duty as Coach Grajeda's pitching coach as they coached together at J.Serra Catholic High School in 2006. "Hiring an experienced and quality pitching coach was imperative for this program", "Landing Rube was like landing a key recruit" stated Grajeda. Ruben played baseball at Arroyo High School and was drafted in the 10th round (294th overall) by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 and played for several seasons with the organization. Throughout his playing career and now as a coach, he has taught at numerous baseball camps, private lessons and coaches clinics throughout the United States. He also helps run the Capo Cats Baseball Club, a highly respected travel baseball organization focusing on development, work ethic and responsibility. Coach Corral draws from knowledge he gained from his former coaches, including current San Diego Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley and former Oakland A's and New York Mets pitching coach Rick Petersen. "The ability to share the knowledge I gained from those coaches with my students is priceless. They've gone on to success coaching the best pitchers in baseball with a stylized approach to mechanics, mental toughness and work ethic. My goal at Vanguard is to teach these young men the artistry of being a pitcher, proper work ethic, and accountability." Ruben's coaching resume includes notable coaching positions at CIF Back to Back Champion Capo Valley High School from 2000-2001 and Junipero Serra Catholic High School, where he helped grow the baseball program from its founding in 2002 as a Division 7 school, to a winning Division I program by 2007, taking 3rd place in the mighty Trinity League.

VU Baseball Releases Fall Schedule

With 2010 season rapidly approaching, the Lions will prepare for the GSAC with fall games with:

10/06 Tues. Irvine Valley College @ Vanguard Univerity 2pm

10/10 Sat. Cerritos JC @ Vanguard University 11am

10/20 Tues. Irvine Valley College @ Vanguard University 2pm

10/22 Thurs. Citrus JC @ Vanguard University 2pm

10/29 Thurs. Chaffey JC @ Vanguard University 2pm

10/31 Sat. San Bernardino Valley JC @ Vanguard University 11am

11/07 Sat. VUSC @ Riverside City College 12pm

FALL BLUE/GOLD WORLD SERIES

MON-FRI 11/09-13/09 GAME TIME 2PM 7 INNINGS EACH

VU Baseball Assists in Homless Enumeration Project

Courtesy of the Daily Pilot-

Costa Mesa is home to more than 100 chronically homeless people, according to preliminary results of a citywide count done during the past two days by Vanguard University and the nonprofit group Mercy House.About 75 volunteers, mostly students from Vanguard, including the university’s baseball team, headed out in cars, on foot and on bicycle to search for homeless people living in riverbeds and under freeway overpasses.“I hope we can use some of the information we collect to benefit them,” said Vanguard baseball player Eric Krzysiak.Krzysiak estimates he rode five miles through local parks Thursday morning, where he spotted four homeless people. He and a few of his fellow baseball players persuaded the entire team to pitch in for the effort.“People really can make a difference. I feel like we’re helping the community by doing this,” said Vanguard baseball player Brandon Godfrey, who also participated in the count.The project is the first comprehensive attempt to count Costa Mesa’s chronically homeless population, said Larry Haynes, executive director of Mercy House, which offers programs to prevent homelessness and transitional housing to people trying to get off the streets in Orange County and Ontario.“A lot of the times people’s perception of a problem and its extent or nonexistence depends on ideology,” Haynes said. “Now we have facts, and it’s not a left thing or a right thing. What we do with those facts now as a community is the issue.”Volunteers counted four preschool-aged children living on the streets of Costa Mesa during the count, along with numerous people sleeping in city parks and in their cars. During Wednesday night’s count, volunteers saw the heaviest concentrations of homeless people in Schiffer, TeWinkle and Lions parks, and clusters between Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard.Organizers hope the effort will result in an accurate estimate of the number of homeless people in the city and identify their needs to help eliminate homelessness.More volunteers, including athletes from Vanguard’s soccer team, will head out next week to do more counts.“The data we have collected is fresh data and has the potential to tell us who is out on the streets and what their needs are,” said Ed Clarke, chairman of the department of anthropology and sociology at Vanguard.Clarke has headed up efforts at the university to conduct the count.Vanguard and Mercy hope to conduct more detailed surveys of the chronically homeless in Costa Mesa over the next year.