Harvard Baseball Players Start Showing Toughness in All Fields

Most high school coaches worry about their players’ work in the classroom, but Harvard baseball Coach Jim Brink says his worries about academia take a different turn.

Brink claims Harvard does not always attract students with a burning desire to win on the athletic field because of the emphasis the private boys’ school in North Hollywood places on academics.

“We don’t get many kids with that street type of competitiveness,” said Brink, who has coached at Harvard for eight years. “They’re good kids, but most of them have to be taught to be competitive. They’re not that hungry to win. They come from backgrounds where winning in sports isn’t that important.”

That lack of hunger led to a disappointing start for the Saracens, who are 5-6 overall and 2-2 in Santa Fe League play.

Brink, however, claims the team turned its season around in last week’s 6-5 loss to Bell-Jeff.

Trailing after six innings, 5-3, Harvard scored two runs in the top of the seventh, but Bell-Jeff scored the winning run in the bottom half of the inning.

“They proved to themselves that they could come back,” said Brink, whose team has won consecutive games since the loss. “And that really helped their confidence. They used to go into games hoping to win. Now they expect to win. They believe in themselves.”

Add Harvard: Catcher Robby Thayer, a 5-foot, 9-inch, 145-pound junior, has been a bright spot, batting .442 with 8 runs batted in through 10 games. As a leadoff hitter, he has four doubles and seven stolen bases.

“He’s got a strong arm, good speed and he does everything well,” Brink said. “He doesn’t have any weaknesses. He’s a ballplayer with a capital B.”

It wasn’t enough: Simi Valley’s Scott Sharts anticipated the question when he was asked whether his eighth-inning home run against Lake Brantley (Fla.) on Monday was a special moment in his career.

“Actually,” Sharts said, shaking his head, “it doesn’t mean a thing.”

Not in the game, which Lake Brantley won, 5-4, on two runs in the bottom of the eighth. The loss dropped Simi Valley into the consolation bracket of the Colonial Baseball Classic.

But the solo shot was Sharts’ 25th career home run, tying a Southern Section record.

Simi Valley’s opponent in today’s second round was incorrectly reported in Monday’s editions. Simi Valley plays Compolindo (Fla.).

Same nickname, different tradition: Coach Ron Veres looked at his scouting report and found one similarity between Oak Park (3-2-2) and El Segundo, the Eagles’ opponent in today’s opening round of the San Luis Obispo tournament.

“Well, we have the same nickname,” Veres said, “and that’s about it.”

El Segundo has won five Southern Section baseball championships and counts Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett and Baltimore Orioles pitcher Scott McGregor among its alumni. El Segundo is led by Heath Jones, the younger brother of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tracy Jones.

“I remember when McGregor was there and the golden era of El Segundo,” said Veres, who coached the junior varsity at now-closed Aviation High in Redondo Beach between 1967 and 1970. “Our players know about their tradition and are little apprehensive about playing them. They should consider it a challenge. They have nothing to lose.”

No-hit fever: Simi Valley swept a doubleheader with a pair of 1-0 victories on the opening day of the Righetti softball tournament Monday despite getting no hits in the first game. The Pioneers defeated St. Joseph after scoring an unearned run in the seventh inning off Julie Rome, whose team wasted her 10-strikeout, no-hit effort.

Simi Valley didn’t have a baserunner until the seventh, when Denise Swank reached on an infield error with one out, advanced to second on a passed ball and scored the winning run on an error by St. Joseph first baseman Megan Kennison.

Blowout: The gusting winds that blew through the Valley on Monday did more than knock down lawn chairs and topple trash cans. The wind also played havoc with fly balls during Monday’s tournament games, including Reseda’s 13-12 victory over Westlake in the Thousand Oaks tournament and Grant’s 15-14 victory over Verdugo Hills in the Holt-Goodman tournament.

Reseda scored seven runs in the fifth inning to take an 11-3 lead, but Westlake stormed back and scored nine runs to go in front, 12-11.

But in the seventh, Reseda’s Kevin Ogle hit a high fly ball that the wind carried over the fence for a game-winning two-run homer.

The seventh inning of the Grant-Verdugo Hills game was just as unsettling. Grant scored 12 runs in the top half of the hourlong inning to take a 15-5 lead and Verdugo Hills scored nine in the bottom half to make it close.

Decision time: Simi Valley’s Butch Hawking, a guard on the Pioneers’ Southern Section 4-A Division championship basketball team, has been offered an appointment to the Air Force Academy and is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks. Hawking averaged 12.4 points a game and set school assist records for a game (17), season (271) and career (435).

Staff writers Chris J. Parker, Vince Kowalick, Brian Murphy, Ralph Nichols and Sean Waters contributed to this notebook.