RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The players and coaches for NorCal Baseball new exactly what they were getting themselves into when they were invited to be one of 16 teams competing at the inaugural Perfect Game California World Series (Upperclass) championship this weekend in the Los Angeles area.

They knew they would be tested by teams predominantly from Southern California, many of which they were at least familiar with from competing in various tournaments over in the Phoenix area the last couple of years.

That is why it was so pleasing to the NorCals to come out on Friday and beat a couple of So Cal teams – the Southern California Bombers and The Lot – in their first two pool-play games by a combined 23-4 and establish themselves as the favorite in a four-team pool with the other three teams all from the Los Angeles area.

“With this being the first tournament (of the fall) it was good to get the bats rolling,” standout 2015 middle-infielder Hank Loforte from Elk Grove said Saturday before NorCal went out to play the Team California Warriors in a game at Riverside City College that would determine the pool champion. “We were just out there playing baseball (Friday) … and it was an overall good day.”

Top 2015 catcher and Dartmouth College recruit Robert Emery from San Francisco agreed with his teammate that putting up a lot of runs in those first two games was not only important but also served to make a bit of a statement.

“We always expect good competition so it was good to come out and hop on (the Bombers for eight runs) right away,” Emery said Saturday. “It seemed like we were all on time and ready to hit, and that’s the biggest thing, especially with wood bats. That was great (Friday) to come out and get it going like that.”

NorCal finished the job Saturday despite its bats falling relatively silent. With the offense only able to produce four hits, it turned to its pitching staff and got a combined five-hit shutout from a pair of 2015s from Tracy, Calif. – right-hander Polo Portela and left-hander Jacob Gallagher.

The 1-0 win enabled NorCal (3-0-0) to advance to Sunday’s semifinal round of the Upperclass event against BPA DeMarini Elite (3-0-0) at 10:30 a.m. at Cal State-Northridge.

NorCal Baseball assistant general manager and erstwhile head coach Tony Crivelli spent Saturday with NorCal’s Underclass team, but he helped put this Upperclass team together and knows its personnel as well as anyone. He felt it was important to bring competitive teams to the inaugural California World Series both for the benefit of his players and the event itself.

“Any chance we get to play in a Perfect Game event against some of the big names, we always enjoy it,” Crivelli said over the telephone Saturday afternoon. “It’s a good measuring stick for all of our guys, and that’s why we come to the Perfect Game events. They allow guys to kind of see where they are in the pecking order and what they need to work on and what they need to improve on.

“Just as a program we like to come down here and play these Southern California teams that we don’t normally get to play.”

Loforte is a 5-foot-7, 155-pound dynamo who hits No. 2 in the NorCal lineup and has committed to NCAA Division I power Cal State Fullerton.

“You know (the) So Cal (region); they’ve got some of the best baseball around,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the experience and playing all the good teams – all of these guys are committed (to colleges) or are going to be committed – so I’m just looking forward to playing real good baseball. I just like playing the best baseball that I can.”

There are at least seven prospects filling spots on NorCal’s Upperclass roster this weekend that were also in the west Phoenix suburbs the last week in July to perform at the prestigious 20-team 17u Perfect Game World Series.

NorCal Baseball advanced to the four-team semifinal round at that elite PG national championship event along with such heavyweights as eventual champion Houston Banditos (Texas), EvoShield Canes (Virginia) and Elite Squad Baseball (Florida).

All from the class of 2015, Loforte and Emery were on that squad, as were right-hander Tyler Pearsall from Tracy; middle-infielder Jacob George from Tracy and right-hander Nick Frank from Granite Bay; Piersall, George and Frank joined Loforte on the event’s all-tournament team. It was the team’s first go-around playing together and it certainly was successful.

“Good players find a way to figure it out real fast,” Crivelli said. “Baseball is baseball – if you’re a shortstop, you’re a shortstop and it doesn’t matter who your second baseman is. Good players figure it out and it only took us about an inning (on Friday) to figure out how to get it going.

“I thought we had a good summer,” he continued. “This group did a real nice job in Arizona – I thought we played pretty well down there and so far we’ve played pretty well here – so, in general, I thought we had a real good summer heading into the fall. This will be a way for us to kind of finish up with this group as far as the guys going into their senior year.”

This weekend is a celebration of California high school baseball, which plays second fiddle to no state in the union in terms of talent. One thing that is universal – whether the conversation is with a prospect from Alaska or Alabama, Iowa or Indiana, Texas or Tennessee, Washington or Wyoming – is the top guys will never turn down an opportunity to compete.

“At a Perfect Game event, you always know it’s going to be good competition,” NorCal’s Emery said. “Anytime you get to come down and play baseball, get away from home and get out on the road, it’s almost like summer is here again. That’s what I like about it: it’s a nice trip away and you can get back to baseball again.

“With school starting – and it’s getting a little colder in Northern California – you can get back in the heat and it feels like it’s back to summer again, basically.”

Whatever the future brings for the PG California World Series – and there is no reason to believe that future won’t be long and bright – comparisons will continue to be made between the style of baseball played in Southern California and Northern California.

“Being around these other guys, you get to exchange words and you become closer through it,” Loforte said. “You can tell a Nor Cal guy from a So Cal guy but, overall, when you’re on the field everything’s the same.”

Emery comes across as a thoughtful and contemplative young man (he is heading to the Ivy League, after all) and noted that anytime he gets the opportunity to face players from other parts of the country, including Southern California, he makes it a learning experience.

He’s a catcher by trade and after playing the same teams, facing the same pitchers and monitoring the same hitters from behind the plate up around the Bay Area he welcomes the opportunity to see fresh faces. He then makes the obvious comparisons and tries to get a handle on his own strengths and weaknesses and uses the information he processes to bring more focus back to his own game.

 “I would say Southern California baseball is a little bit more – I’m not sure ‘flashy’ is the right word – but it’s a faster-paced, more upbeat game, and that’s always fun to play,” Emery said. “There’s going to be more talking and it’s going to be a faster-paced game, so it’s great to come down and hop right into that environment. It’s a ‘big-game’ feeling whenever you’re at a Perfect Game tournament in Southern California.”

Emery has committed to continue his baseball career at Dartmouth and he admitted on Saturday that when the summer started the prestigious academic school wasn’t even on his short list. A scout in attendance at the 17u PGWS alerted the Dartmouth coaching staff – which no doubt took a look as some gleaming academic numbers – and made him an offer.

“I talked to them over the course of the summer and when baseball ended I took a visit out there and I just fell in love with it,” Emery said. “I had lived in Boston for two years so there was an East Coast connection where I have friends and family out there … and it was just like, ‘Wow!’ I just fell in love with it and I just can’t wait to get out to the campus and get into the (baseball) program and all of that.”

For how, he will have to be satisfied with – and you can be sure he most certainly is – playing with his NorCal Baseball teammates in the semifinal round of the PG California World Series (Upperclass) Sunday morning. The players have taken their notes, made their comparisons, looked at what they did right in their three pool-play victories and are now ready to show what a team from Nor Cal can do.

“We just click really well; it’s like we’re all bros,” Loforte said. “We just like playing ball together and we all have confidence in each other – every guy at every position. We know everyone’s going to make the play so there’s no worries.”