Orange County Prep Review : It’s Hard to Figure the Fortunes of Some Teams

Whoever dubbed baseball a game of inches, neglected to add it can be a mind-boggling study in the obvious, sublime and the painfully ridiculous.

With three weeks left in the Orange County high school baseball season, El Modena High School is challenging for a playoff berth. The Vanguards are challenging with one pitcher who can’t see home plate, and another who--until recently--wasn’t allowed on the diamond.

Edison was expected to be one of the county’s best teams, but has slumped to last place in the Sunset League. The Chargers have lost four one-run league games, including one on a late-inning home run--hit by Edison.

Brea-Olinda is winning games with soccer players, La Quinta is losing with an improved defense and pitching staff, and perhaps the county’s best prospect.

Go figure.

Here now a tale of four teams:

It don’t come easy: Things are going well these days for Don Mott, El Modena coach. They just aren’t going too smoothly.

Mott coached his first no-hitter Friday as the Vanguards defeated Villa Park, 1-0. After going 3-4 in nonleague games, the Vanguards improved to 5-3 in the Century League and moved within a game of first place. Foothill, Tustin and Canyon are tied, all 6-2.

There’s usually not much to coaching a no-hitter. You make sure nobody talks to your pitcher and prepare a statement for the media. Easy street.

Except that nothing has come easy for Mott recently.

He had to juggle two pitchers Friday--sophomore Todd Hively and senior Dave Black--and his team had to scrape together a run in the bottom of the seventh inning to win.

“This isn’t getting any easier,” said Mott, with a sigh and a laugh. “We’re scrambling around but we’re keeping our heads above water.”

Hively started the game but was removed in the fourth when Mott decided he was tired. Black came in and allowed one walk over the next 3 innings.

Mott credits his pitching staff for much of his team’s success, but it’s also been a source of a few tense and bewildering moments.

In the league opener against Villa Park, Hively was brought in as a relief pitcher. He promptly walked the first two batters he faced.

“He didn’t come close to the strike zone so I went out to the mound to ask him what the heck was going on,” Mott said. “The kid was so nervous, he told me he had forgotten his contact lenses at home and he couldn’t see home plate.”

Ben Ortiz pitched a four-hitter against Tustin Wednesday as the Vanguards upset the No. 7 Tillers, 6-4.

That’s all very nice except it left Mott wondering what might have been.

Wednesday was the first game Ortiz pitched this season since becoming academically eligible.

Mott is using a new sign system that relys on a predetermined game plan this season.

“It was developed by my assistant Larry Bjork,” Mott said. “The kids already know what they’re going to do in what situation. We don’t have to tell them everything and that way there aren’t any mix-ups.”

Doesn’t he worry about kids forgetting the game plan?

“Not really. Our system is a lot like a football team calling plays. If you know anything about El Modena, everybody here plays football. No problem.”

Hit and miss: Dave Demerest, La Quinta coach, knows there is a lot expected of his teams.

The Aztecs have finished either first or second in the Garden Grove League the last eight years.

But this season, La Quinta is 4-5 in league and may not qualify for the playoffs for only the third time in Demerest’s 13 years at the school.

At the core of La Quinta’s problems is an anemic offense hitting .195 in league competition. The Aztecs--who start four sophomores--have managed back-to-back hits in league just once.

Things are even worse when you consider that shortstop Troy Paulsen, one of the county’s top players, boosts his team batting average tremendously with a .500 average.

But the way things have gone at La Quinta this season, even a hit can be a bad thing.

In a game against Bolsa Grande, James Marquez walked. John Park followed with a single and Marquez had to stop to avoid being hit by the ball. When Marquez stopped, he fell. By the time he had righted himself he was thrown out at second base.

“Even when we do things right, things seem to go wrong,” Demerest said.

Trailing Garden Grove, 2-1, Wednesday, Paulsen came up with the bases loaded and one out.

“I’m thinking, ‘Finally, someone’s answered my prayers,’ ” Demerest said. “People pitch around Troy all season. We finally get him up there when we really want him up there.”

So what happens? Paulsen strikes out for the first time this season.

“What can you do? It’s the first time the kid has struck out all season. You can’t get angry. I just went over and sat on my crate,” Demerest said.

Though the season has been rather tough, La Quinta does have an outside chance of making the playoffs. The Aztecs are two games behind Bolsa Grande, Garden Grove and Santiago, all tied for the lead at 6-3.

“The playoffs are fun, but I don’t want these kids to feel a lot of pressure to make them,” Demerest said. “People might want them to live in the past. They ask them, ‘What’s wrong this season?’ Nothing’s wrong. This is a young team that can’t hit right now. That’s all.”

The one that got away: Things haven’t gone so well for Ron La Ruffa, Edison coach.

His team was ranked in the top 10 at the beginning of the season and seemed a safe bet to make the playoffs.

But the Chargers (3-6) are in last place in the Sunset League.

They’ve lost four one-run games in league. They’ve lost them every which way, but the worst undoubtedly came last Tuesday against Huntington Beach.

With the scored tied at 2-2 in the seventh inning, Edison’s Ed Pang, a defensive replacement in the sixth, hit a two-run homer to center field to give the Chargers a 4-2 lead.

Or did he?

As Pang was rounding third, La Ruffa noticed Huntington Beach Coach Roy Miller standing at the plate. Pang’s entrance on defense had not been reported to the umpire. Pang’s home run was taken away and he was declared out.

In the bottom of the inning, Huntington Beach won the game on a Edison error.

“I want to make clear that Pang not reporting was my responsibility,” La Ruffa said. “It’s tough, but that’s the way things have been going around here lately.”

Kicked upstairs: And at Brea-Olinda, given little or no chance to make the playoffs, everything is just fine.

Steve Hiskey, who replaced Bob Justice as Wildcat coach a month before this season started, said that even though his team began the Orange League season at 1-4, he wasn’t worried.

“We had some key people on the soccer team,” Hiskey said. “I figured once they came out things might improve.”

The Brea soccer team ended up with a Southern Section co-championship, but the season didn’t end until March 8.

The Wildcats have won four straight league games, and at 5-4, are tied for second in the league with Valencia. Mike Oziminski, soccer player, had six RBIs last week. David Kane, soccer player, is the team’s top pitcher.

“It was a matter of being patient,” Hiskey said.

Mike Beech, UCLA freshman lineman, has regained consciousness and his condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, said a UCLA Medical Center spokesman Sunday.

Beech, an all-county performer at Newport Harbor, fell from the second story of a UCLA fraternity house during a party Thursday. He underwent 14 hours of surgery.

Prep Notes

Marie Roethlisberger, a 1984 graduate of Marina High School and the daughter of University of Minnesota men’s gymnastics coach Fred Roethlisberger, has signed a national letter of intent to compete for the Golden Gophers in the 1986-87 season.