THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Birmingham Has One of the Great Late Bloomers

After three failed attempts on his high school baseball team in Wilmington, Del., Dan Meehan figured he had had enough. So, heeding the time-honored advice of Horace Greeley, this young man packed his bags and headed West.

Meehan landed in Van Nuys last summer where he moved in with his grandparents and enrolled at Birmingham High. Shortly after acclimating himself to West Coast living--a transition that included a crash course in Valley Speak and the new experience of baseball practice in the middle of winter--he sought out baseball Coach Wayne Sink.

This would be Meehan’s last chance. In three straight seasons at Salesianum, a parochial school of 1,200 boys in Wilmington, Meehan tried out for the baseball team and three times he didn’t make it.

“I tried out as a pitcher and a third baseman, but they cut me from every position,” Meehan said.

But in California, Meehan’s luck has changed. He made the varsity as a senior relief pitcher and appeared in two games out of the bullpen with mixed results before drawing his first starting assignment.

Seven innings and 75 pitches later, Meehan put his name in the Birmingham record book, pitching the school’s first no-hitter in 20 years, defeating Kennedy on Thursday, 3-0. The 6-2, 170-pound right-hander retired the first 20 batters, and only Kennedy pinch-hitter Eddie Herrera stood between him and a perfect game.

Meehan walked him on four straight pitches.

Meehan retired the next batter, but it took a diving catch by right fielder Larry Hill to preserve the no-hitter. Earlier in the game, Birmingham first baseman Mike Shelofsky snared a line drive for an out, and shortstop Ernie Perez managed to hold on to a fly ball in short left field despite colliding with Craig Stevens.

Although his teammates helped him in the field, they violated baseball tradition and reminded Meehan of the no-hitter throughout the game.

“They tried to jinx me in the first inning when I got them 1-2-3 by saying, ‘Hey, he’s got a perfect game going,’ ” Meehan said. “I just shrugged it off, but when it got down to the fourth inning I was thinking about it. By the sixth inning I thought it was getting pretty serious.”

Has Meehan earned another start?

“Are you kidding?” Sink said. “If I don’t, there’ll be a lynching party out for the coach.”

Add pitching: Meehan’s effort shared the spotlight with two other notable performances Thursday, a day for pitching in the Valley. Poly’s Nick Lymberopoulos and Mario Gomez also missed perfect games by one batter and settled for a no-hitter.

Lymberopoulos pitched four perfect innings before being relieved by Gomez in a 20-0 win over Hollywood. Gomez did not allow a hit or walk, but a Hollywood batter reached base on a fifth-inning error.

On any other day Sylmar’s Olonzo Woodfin would have warranted top billing, but his outing was lost in the shuffle. Woodfin settled for only a one-hitter with 14 strikeouts in Sylmar’s 7-4 win over Verdugo Hills.

Coaching changes: After a 1-19 season at Royal, basketball Coach Gene Hatton resigned and has been replaced by Joe Malkinson. A Royal graduate, Malkinson, 35, was the junior varsity basketball coach and an assistant football coach.

Assistant football coach Robert McElwee has been selected to succeed Bob Dunivant, who led Burroughs to the semifinal round of the Northwestern Conference playoffs and a 10-2-1 record last season. Dunivant will remain as an assistant, working with quarterback Jeff Barrett, who threw for 2,743 yards and 20 touchdowns as a junior in 1986.