Harvard Hands Loyola Short End of Match

It wasn’t exactly David against Goliath, because when Harvard-Westlake High met Mission League rival Loyola on Tuesday, it matched the two top-ranked volleyball teams in the Southland--and perhaps the top two in the nation.

Loyola was undefeated and ranked first in the Southern Section Division I. The Wolverines were ranked second, their only loss a five-game defeat to the Cubs.

But after looking at the two teams, the Harvard-Westlake players could be handed slingshots.

The Cubs are loaded with height, power and leaping ability. Ten players on the roster are listed 6-foot-2 or taller.

“Look at No. 9,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Jess Quiroz said, gesturing to Loyola’s Eric Bennett, whose shaved head made his 6-5, 225 pound-frame even more intimidating.

“He’s a man.”

Harvard-Westlake plays with an undersized lineup and has only two tall players (Seth Rodsky and Jay Ingram each stand 6-4).

But athleticism takes many forms. The Wolverines’ precision passing, smart hitting and the uncanny setting ability of Court Young propelled them to a four-game victory.

“That’s how we beat most teams,” Young said. “We’re not big, but we’re pretty steady.”

MISSION LEAGUE

Sweet Dreams

Harvard-Westlake’s Matt Sebree, one of the nation’s top high school volleyball players, did not sleep the night before the match against Loyola.

“I had an art history paper due, so I pulled an all-nighter,” the senior outside hitter said.

He was wide awake at game time, finishing with a match-high 29 kills and leading the team to the emotional victory.

“I was joking with my teammates, I may never go to sleep again,” he said.

*

Chaminade’s fine pitching is only getting better. The Eagles allowed only one run in two games last week and had won seven of eight games until losing to Alemany on Wednesday, 4-0.

Sophomore Gabe Crecion leads the team with a 6-2 record and a 1.62 earned-run average in 39 innings. The 6-foot-4 sophomore also plays first base and has a .319 batting average.

“He’s just throwing incredible stuff,” Coach Dave Desmond said.

Crecion’s older brother, Adam Crecion, joined the team Saturday after sitting out since mid-March because of a broken nose.

Adam had a two-run single in his first at-bat. He will move from catcher to right field and from first in the batting lineup to fifth.

“We need run production and he can do it,” Desmond said. “He’s playing exactly the way he did when he went down.”

MARMONTE LEAGUE

Wishful Thinking?

Agoura Coach Bryan Maloney said his program had a turning point when it blew a 12-1 lead to Dos Pueblos last week. A positive turning point, believe it or not.

Positive because the Chargers won, 14-12, in eight innings.

“That’s important for the program,” Maloney said. “We’ve been trying to teach the kids how to play. Now we feel we’re trying to teach them how to win. When you blow a 12-1 lead, your attitude can just be, ‘Here we go again.’ ”

After winning that game with two runs in the eighth, the Chargers came back to beat Bishop Diego, 14-8, in their final game in the Santa Barbara tournament.

“We won two in a row, which is something for this program,” Maloney said at the start of the week. “We feel like we’re rolling.”

The roll was a short one. Agoura (5-13, 0-7) has lost to league opponents Newbury Park and Camarillo this week.

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Camarillo baseball Coach Jack Willard was impressed with Moorpark, a Frontier League team that won the Camarillo tournament, which included mostly teams from the larger Marmonte and Channel leagues.

“They’re pretty good,” Willard said. “They could play in (the Marmonte) League with no problems. They have two good pitchers and are solid one-through-nine.”

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Simi Valley right-hander Bill Scheffels, an All-Southern Section pitcher last season, might have his problems straightened out. Scheffels has pitched poorly in his past two starts--no decision in an 8-6, extra-inning loss to Newbury Park and a loss to Moorpark in the championship game of the Camarillo tournament.

Coach Mike Scyphers said the problems were Scheffels’ control (12 walks in those two starts) and a reluctance to throw his changeup, generally considered his best pitch.

“We finally told him he’s going to throw it and not be shaking it off anymore,” Scyphers said.

Scheffels is 5-1 with a 3.09 ERA.

*

The bottom of the Royal batting order provided all the runs, runs batted in and five of the team’s six hits Monday in a 4-2 victory over Thousand Oaks.

Shawn Fossen (two hits), Kevin Mellinger (one hit) and Ben Lemos (two hits, three RBIs) batted in the sixth-through-eighth spots. No. 9 hitter Jesus Robles walked twice.

TRI-VALLEY LEAGUE

Sizzling

Whose going to stop Brian McMullen? The wind maybe. But no pitcher has shut down the Oak Park catcher, who is batting .529 after 34 at-bats.

“It’s to the point where he goes two for four and his average goes down,” Coach Mike Bolyog said. “At Bishop Diego and Santa Barbara (in the Santa Barbara tournament), he’s hit balls into 35-40 mile-an-hour winds. And they went 380. They would have gone out, but they ended up being a double and a triple. They were crushed.”

FOOTHILL LEAGUE

Getting a Taste

Burbank (6-8) and rival Burroughs (8-7-1) might not be playoff contenders, but they sampled the postseason atmosphere when the teams met last week.

Burbank’s 5-4 come-from-behind victory at home featured bright lights and a huge fan turnout that caught first-year Burbank coaches Chad Nammack and Sandy Sreden by surprise.

“It’s a pretty intense rivalry, which we didn’t know about,” said Sreden, an assistant. “Both (teams) aren’t doing that well, but the stands were filled. There were 300-400 fans. People were loud, yelling the whole game.”

The Bulldogs came back to win the night game. With Burroughs leading in the bottom of the seventh, 4-3, Brian Sindle hit a one-out double, stole third base and scored on a squeeze by Jason Jonas. Later in the inning, Frank Garcia walked with the bases loaded to end the game.

MID-VALLEY LEAGUE

Coincidence

Birmingham’s Lionel Villareal knew it was coming.

After teammates Don Wingo, Jimmy Uline and Dave Cohen him hit home runs on three consecutive pitches against North Hollywood’s Carlos Sandoval, it was Villareal’s turn to bat.

With warnings from teammates about a possible pay-back pitch ringing in his ears, Villareal took a curveball square in the back.

“I don’t think he hit him on purpose,” Birmingham Coach Rick Weber said. “It was a curve that didn’t curve. If he wanted to hit him, I think he would have thrown a fastball.”

Villareal, however, didn’t let Sandoval get the best of him. He later doubled off him--twice.

EAST VALLEY LEAGUE

Rios in Relief

Beware of Grant relief pitcher Walter Rios. When he takes the mound, the Lancers tend to find a way to win.

At the start of the week, the right-hander had pitched just 11 innings, yet he is 3-1 with one save. Rios has never started a game and has never pitched more than 3 1/3 innings in a game, but he has the most decisions on the staff.

His secret? Fastball, no more than 50 in a game.

“He’s a one-pitch guy right now,” Grant Coach Jeremy Lawrence said. “He’s not a (Joel) Zamudio or a (Randy) Wolf, but he’s gonna develop his speed. He’s a big kid.”

Rios, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound junior, has beaten Cleveland, San Fernando and Van Nuys in relief. He has allowed five hits, four walks, two earned runs and has struck out five.

Around the Leagues. . . .

* Crescenta Valley’s Marty Lane suffered a broken left hand last week while sliding into third base in a game against Arcadia. The senior outfielder will be out about three weeks.

* As this week began, Simi Valley’s Bill Scheffels was leading the Marmonte League batting race. Scheffels was hitting .551, 60 points ahead of teammate Ryan Hankins (.491).

* Royal shortstop Joel Mellinger had two triples in the Santa Barbara tournament last week, raising his season total to a school-record six.

* Royal had eight players at the start of the week with 10 or more RBIs, led by Maki Kramer and Ben Lemos, who each had 16. Adrian Mendoza, Joel Mellinger and Shawn Fossen each had 15.

* Chatsworth’s identical twins Ray and Rod Daryabigi have almost identical batting averages: Rod is hitting .469, Ray .467.

* Eleven of El Camino Real’s Randy Wolf’s 22 hits are for extra bases: Wolf has five triples, three home runs and three doubles.

* Justin Graves’ complete game last Friday against Littlerock was the first for an Antelope Valley pitcher in 42 games, dating to 1992.

* Quartz Hill’s Jonathon Smith went five for seven last week with three runs and two RBIs in the Rebels’ two victories.

* The Hart pitching staff has an ERA of 2.59 and has limited foes to a .246 batting average.

* Palmdale shortstop Jerome Payton has 22 stolen bases in 23 attempts.

* Birmingham has turned 27 double plays.

* Birmingham’s Don Wingo (.455 in league play) hit safely the team’s first seven Valley Pac-8 Conference games.

* Granada Hills volleyball players Mike DiSimone and Victor Chang set school records in Monday’s five-game victory over Taft. DiSimone had 41 kills and Chang had 84 assists.

Passing the Bar

Esa Sallinen of Burroughs High moved into a tie for sixth on the all-time region list in the boys’ pole vault when he cleared 16 feet 1/4 inch during a dual meet last week against Burbank. The top 10 jumps are:

Mark Individual School Yr 17-4 1/4 Anthony Curran Crespi ’78 17-0 Tom Parker Notre Dame ’88 16-6 Brian Worden Notre Dame ’75 16-4 Jesse Stern Har.-Westlake ’93 16-2 3/4 Tim Curran Crespi ’73 16-0 1/4 Brian Goodman Agoura ’75 16-0 1/4 Esa Sallinen Burroughs ’94 15-8 1/2 Tim Quinn Monroe ’72 15-8 Jay Bettinger Chatsworth ’88 15-7 1/4 Fred Selzer Glendale ’71

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, Dana Haddad, Michael Lazarus and Paige A. Leech contributed to this notebook.