Venice Nine Stumble, but Seek Bigger Challenge

The Venice High School baseball team may have failed to win an unprecedented fourth-straight 3-A City baseball championship last week, but Venice Coach Jeff Shimizu still hopes that his team will move up to the 4-A level of competition one day.

In fact, Shimizu would not only like to see Venice and other Western League teams move up but he also favors returning all 49 Los Angeles City teams to the old system, when every school played at the 4-A level.

Chuck Ice, Crossroads School athletic director and baseball coach, has had nearly as much success with his nine as Shimizu has had at Venice. When Crossroads defeated Tehachapi, 4-0, last week to win the Southern Section Small Schools (large division) title, it was the third appearance by the Roadrunners in the last four years in a Small Schools final.

Ice, whose team also won a CIF title in 1985, said he wouldn’t mind if the Crossroads baseball squad and the school’s defending state champion basketball team moved up in competition--but not if it meant that the rest of the school’s programs would have to follow suit.

Strong Case

Shimizu, whose position on elevating his team and the rest of the Western League is supported by most coaches in the league, has a strong case to make.

When Bell defeated Venice, 7-5, for the championship at Dodger Stadium last Thursday, it was not only the first baseball title in school history for Bell but also the first time that a Western League team had not won a 3-A championship.

In 1983, the first year that the City divided its baseball teams into 4-A and 3-A divisions, it was an all-Western League 3-A final as Westchester defeated Palisades for the title.

In 1984, it was Venice over Westchester in the final, and in 1985, it was Venice over Palisades. Last year was the first time that two Western League teams didn’t play for the championship, and Venice defeated Huntington Park of the Eastern League.

Beat Nation’s Best

Last year Venice may have had its best team in school history. The Gondoliers won non-league games against Granada Hills and Kennedy, two generally strong teams from the San Fernando Valley, whose teams have won five straight City 4-A titles. They also defeated Simi Valley, which was ranked first in the nation for much of last season.

Shimizu thought that this year’s team would change places with Locke in the Marine League, the only 4-A league outside the Valley, which has three leagues in the 4-A division. But he said the move, which had the informal approval of the school district’s athletic administration, was rejected by the City’s Interscholastics Athletic Committee because the request had been made out of channels.

In his role as a baseball coach, Ice said that his team and the basketball team, which has appeared in six consecutive CIF finals and won four championships (two 1-A and two Small Schools titles) “would do fine moving up.”

But as an athletic director, Ice said that he doesn’t want the rest of the athletic program to suffer if Crossroads boys and girls teams in other sports would have to meet the same kind of competition as the baseball and basketball squads.

410 Students

Crossroads has an enrollment of only 410, he said, and fields teams in nine sports other than baseball and basketball. “I’m not sure we have the students to compete (at a higher level),” he added.

But Shimizu and other Western League baseball coaches say their teams generally have what it takes to play 4-A baseball.

The Venice coach, who played for the 1972 Gondolier team that won a 4-A City title, said that he understands that releaguing for baseball will be “on the table for discussion” in the next school year and that he favors a return “to the same playoff format we originally had.

“I think everybody would be better off to just have one division in City baseball and let the top two teams in each league go to the playoffs. With only 49 schools, I don’t feel the City is strong enough to be dividing up.

Quality Playoffs

“Winning your league used to be more of a reward. There was more emphasis on finishing higher because they only took two teams from each league (in the playoffs) Going back to the old system would increase the quality of the playoffs because you would have 16 quality teams.”

Under the current system, there are four leagues in 4-A competition, including three San Fernando Valley leagues, and four 3-A leagues. The top four teams in each league advance to separate playoffs at each level, which means that 32 of 49 teams win playoff berths.

Said Shimizu: “Our Western League is a very, very strong league, and any of our teams could play with any Valley League team.”

He said that Venice will lose many key players to graduation this year and will be rebuilding next year. But he said that Palisades “without question should be the dominant team in the league in the next couple of years” and that the league--which includes Crenshaw, Hamilton, Palisades and Westchester--will be strong again next year.

Dominant League

Most of the other Western League coaches feel it would be a good idea for their league to play at the 4-A level. But, generally, they would not like it if Venice was the only team from the league to move up and was replaced by another school.

Westchester Coach Ron Kasparian, whose 1983 team won the 3-A title and lost to Venice in the finals in 1984, said, “I think we (the Western League) have been dominating in 3-A and deserve at least a one- or two-year shot at 4-A, to see how we match up in the championships.”

Last year, Kasparian said, Venice had a great year “and didn’t get a chance to show off in 4-A.”

Russ Howard, first-year head coach at Palisades, said, “I would definitely like to go 4-A. Whether we would get a chance to get by the first round of the playoffs, I don’t know.”

Venice a Class Team

“Overall, the (Western) league is obviously the strongest in the 3-A and should be allowed to go 4-A,” Howard said. “Venice definitely had every right to be at the 4-A level this year. . . . But I don’t want to throw out a class team like Venice and bring in Locke. I’m not putting down Locke, but we’ve got to travel miles to get there.”

University High Coach Frank Cruz said he would support 4-A status for the Western League, but “what I’m most concerned with is not breaking up” the league.

Cruz said that he was strongly opposed to replacing Venice with Locke. “Traditionally, we go over to Venice, and you know the people and there is great interest in the area. If we go to play Locke or Huntington Park, nobody cares.”

He said that he supports Shimizu in calling for the return of all the schools to 4-A status.

“From top to bottom, I think our league can be one of the strongest in the city, and last year it probably was the strongest,” Cruz said. “In the 3-A playoffs, the competition is not very good, especially in the first two rounds of the playoffs. . . . There are only 49 schools in the city, and I don’t believe it’s necessary to have two levels in baseball.”

‘Can Play With Anybody’

He said that this year’s 3-A champion, Bell, had defeated Crenshaw, Westchester and Venice in the playoffs, and proved “it can play with anybody in the city. Who is to say they can’t play against Polytechnic or Canoga Park?” Canoga Park defeated Poly in this year’s 4-A final.

Meanwhile, Ice, whose Crossroads baseball team regularly plays against higher-level teams outside its Delphic League, said that the Roadrunners, in effect, took a step up this season.

In CIF baseball this year, the Small Schools Division was partitioned into two categories: large and small. “Ours was the only league in the large division that was in Small Schools last year,” he said. “The other leagues were all 1-A last year.

“I thought it was a good, positive move for us and that the competition was a lot better than it used to be. In the first couple of rounds, there were no gimmies, no blowouts.”