Lofrano Sets More Modest Goals for High-Caliber Chatsworth Team

After witnessing Chatsworth High sweep through the Colonial Baseball Classic last week in Orlando, Fla., tournament director George Kirchgassner had made up his mind.

“Chatsworth has got to be ranked No. 1 in the country,” said Kirchgassner, who also is the Colonial coach. “They’ve got to be. If they aren’t the best team in the country, I don’t know who is.”

Probably, nobody does.

And despite winning the 16-team national tournament with entries from six states, Chatsworth Coach Bob Lofrano refuses to lay claim to the title of No. 1 team in the nation.

“I just want to be the best team in the West Valley and then the best team in the City,” said Lofrano, whose team won the tournament Saturday with a 5-2 win over Kaiser (Hawaii). “And there are other teams that want to lay claim to that.”

Chatsworth recorded wins over Oak Ridge (Fla.), Winter Park (Fla.), Saugus and Kaiser.

“I don’t really worry about rankings,” said Lofrano, whose team is ranked third in the Valley by The Times. “Those things are just somebody’s opinion.”

Rankings: Chatsworth and Hart benefited from their Easter tournament victories and were ranked the top two teams in the state, according to Cal-Hi Sports Magazine, which released its first baseball poll of the season Tuesday.

Chatsworth (11-1) captured first in the Colonial Baseball Classic in Orlando, Fla., and was ranked No. 1 in the 4-A Division. Hart (14-0), which won the Eldorado tournament in Las Vegas, was ranked No. 2.

St. Genevieve (10-1) was the only other Valley-area team to be ranked in the poll. The Valiants were ranked seventh in the 2-A Division.

Add Chatsworth: Second baseman Vince Simili will be out at least a week because of a cut and bruised hand he sustained in Saturday’s championship game. Simili was taken to a hospital and received four stitches.

Ailing arm: El Camino Real pitcher Denny Vigo will not pitch for the remainder of the season, Coach Mike Maio said, because of a recurring elbow injury suffered last summer.

“He stretched some ligaments in American Legion ball,” Maio said. “And it just recurred.”

Vigo was 3-5 last season with a 3.54 earned-run average. He was the losing pitcher in a 2-1 loss to Poly in the City 4-A semifinals.

Vigo, who hit three home runs in the Thousand Oaks tournament, will play third base or designated hitter.

Lance Gibson, Steve Smith and Patrick Treend will attempt to pick up the slack left by Vigo, who is 0-1 and has pitched in only one game. “We’re looking for this to inspire the other guys to pitch well,” Maio said.

What a relief: Those who think teams need a strong bullpen to win at the high school level may want to reevaluate. Granada Hills, which is 7-0 and ranked No. 1 in the Valley by The Times, has used a relief pitcher only once--and for a meager 1 innings.

Granada Hills starters Jeff Adams (4-0) and Eric Harris (3-0) have recorded six complete games between them, which has made the bullpen a good place to polish up on the latest one-liners.

Adams and Harris, both senior right-handers, have allowed a combined 36 hits and 12 earned runs in 47 innings. They have struck out 37 and walked 16.

When Coach Darryl Stroh was asked about his team’s relief pitching, there was a short pause.

“That would be Kurt Lowry, I guess,” Stroh said.

Lowry, a pitcher-outfielder-first baseman, pitched the 1 innings in relief of Adams.

Add arms: Birmingham senior Alan Sedacca is off to a 4-0 start and has four complete games with an ERA of 0.50.

His coach, Wayne Sink, needs a microscope to find Sedacca’s ERA, but he doesn’t need one to spot the reason for the pitcher’s success.

In 28 innings, Sedacca, a right-hander, has struck out 24 and walked eight.

“His control has been phenomenal,” Sink said.

Take away a game last week against Venice, when Sedacca walked six, and his control borders on being perfect--especially in light of last season, when he walked 40 in 45 innings and struck out 46.

Happy holidays: Cleveland and El Camino Real have accepted invitations to play in the 30-team Holiday Basketball Classic on Dec. 26-29 in Las Vegas. They are the only two City Section teams in the event.

The host school is Rancho High of Las Vegas. Other Southern California teams that have accepted invitations are Inglewood, Lakewood, Rolling Hills, Santa Barbara and St. Bernard of Playa del Rey.

Teams from outside the area include Oakland Skyline; Garfield of Seattle; Dunbar of Dayton, Ohio; Mackin of Washington, D. C.; and Lincoln of Brooklyn, N. Y.

“It’s a good chance for Cleveland and El Camino to represent the entire City,” said Jeff Davis, an assistant at El Camino Real. “It’s one of the best tournaments in the nation, with some of the best talent around.”

Because of the scheduling conflict, Cleveland will not defend the Chaminade tournament title it won by defeating Manual Arts--the eventual state champion--last December.

Cleveland played in the Chaminade tournament final the past three years.

“This was just too much to pass up,” Cleveland Coach Bob Braswell said. “It’s a great field.”

Easter baseball: An Easter baseball tournament for parochial schools is being organized for the 1989 season, according to Alemany Coach Jim Ozella.

The tournament is scheduled for the week after Easter, when parochial schools are on vacation, and one week after most holiday tournament’s are played. Public schools are usually closed the week before Easter.

“It’s always been a problem for the parochial schools during Easter,” Ozella said.

The tournament likely will be a 16-team affair for the first year, with room for expansion. Tentatively, four sites--Mater Dei, Bishop Amat, St. John Bosco and St. Paul--will play host to the 1989 tournament. Valley-area schools will serve as hosts the following year.

Knight flight: Pole vaulter Tom Parker of Notre Dame left on a recruiting trip to the University of Kansas on Monday.

Parker, the runner-up in last year’s state championships who has the state’s best jump this season at 16-2 3/4, made previous recruiting trips to Tennessee, Nebraska and Texas.

“This will probably be my last one,” Parker said. “The only other school I’m really interested in is UCLA.”

Parker is more than interested. He already has made a verbal commitment to UCLA, but he won’t sign a letter of intent until he receives his final high school grades. The signing period begins April 13.

“I’ve got to meet certain academic requirements,” Parker said. “And I don’t want to sign until I know for sure that I’ve met them.”

Parker, whose 16-2 3/4 effort moved him into a tie for third on the all-time Valley-area list, would have to sit out his freshman season and lose a year of eligibility if he signed and did not meet minimum Division I academic standards.

Staff writers John Ortega, Steve Elling and Tim Brown contributed to this notebook.