Prep Notebook : Now Playing at Royal: The Young and the Restless

Royal High’s baseball team has a message for the Marmonte League: Get us now because you may not have a chance next year.

The Highlanders, dominated by underclassmen, are 5-10 overall and 3-2 in league.

Among their victories is a 12-9 decision over arch-rival Simi Valley last week. It was the Highlanders’ first win over Simi Valley in five years.

Royal features a batting order in which there are no seniors in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth spots.

The team’s No. 3 hitter, center fielder Joe Summers, leads the team with 13 runs batted in.

In a game against Hart in the Babe Herman Easter Tournament, the sophomore hit back-to-back home runs, one left-handed and the other right-handed.

Said Coach Tom Smails: “He looked terrible in his first at bat, and when he does that we turn him around and force him to bat left-handed the next time. Well, we turned him around and he hit a home run. The time after that, he came up right-handed again, and he hit another home run.”

David Raper, the cleanup hitter, has 17 hits in 48 at-bats. Raper, a junior, is also one of the team’s top pitchers. His 3-3 record includes the victory over Simi Valley.

Raper has struck out 34 batters in 34 innings, allowing 17 earned runs.

Sophomore Robby Martin is the No. 5 hitter, knocking out 15 hits in 48 at-bats. Martin also has scored a team-high 12 runs.

The No. 6 hitter is just a ninth grader. Third baseman Sean Sullivan, who attends Hillside Junior High in Simi Valley, was brought up for defensive purposes and ended up hitting .381 in his first eight games with the varsity.

Royal should also be healthy on the mound next season. Along with Raper, Dan Presta will return. Presta, a sophomore, has a 2-1 record and has given up 16 earned runs in 32 innings.

Simi Valley’s team batting average slipped below the .400 mark for only the second time this season after two losses last week. The Pioneers, ranked second in the Southern Section’s 4-A Division, are 19-2 with a .395 team average.

Two Simi players--Eric Fischer and Glen Davis--are at the .500 mark, three are over .400, and three more are hitting better than .300.

Coach Mike Scyphers said his team bounced back from the two losses in impressive fashion, hammering out a 14-7 win over Thousand Oaks on Friday.

“I expected them to take the Royal loss hard, but really they didn’t act like it was anything but a normal league loss,” he said. “For us, that’s all it was. For (Royal) it probably made their season.

“I won’t be surprised if we go undefeated the rest of the season.”

While Burroughs’ softball pitcher Christy Alves has drawn most of the attention, Burbank’s Debby Day has had her own string of success.

Day, a sophomore who transferred from Notre Dame, had pitched in four games for the Bulldogs before Tuesday.

She pitched a four-hitter against St. Joseph and a one-hitter against Alhambra. Day also tossed five innings of no-hit relief against Royal.

Her only loss was a 6-2 decision to Hart. Day gave up only five hits against Hart, but Burbank made 14 errors in the game.

Alves, a ninth-grader, recently pitched three straight no-hitters.

“I think there’s a little competition building between Christy and Debby,” Burbank Coach Chris Krohn told a Burbank newspaper. “I think for any pitcher, especially a cross-town rival, a competitor’s good throwing is going to make her rise to the occasion.

“Debby thinks of the two of them as equals. . . . It’s going to be interesting when they face each other.

“Everybody’s talking about Christy getting a perfect game and that’s fine. Everybody’s got their game. But when she throws a no-hitter against Hart, then I’ll start to worry.”

Alves and Day are scheduled to battle each other next Tuesday in a Foothill League game.

Notes

Gerald Thomas, a member of The Times’ All-Valley basketball team, has signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Va. The 6-5, 213-pound athlete averaged 15 points a game for Faith Baptist this season.