Redondo Bats Boom and Record Zooms; 9 Hitting .300

With his team sporting the best record in the South Bay and the No. 1 ranking in the Southern Section 4-A Division, Redondo baseball Coach Harry Jenkins has few complaints.

His one concern earlier in the season was the Sea Hawks’ lack of hitting. In recent weeks, however, Redondo’s lineup has become a veritable Murderers Row.

Entering Wednesday night’s Pioneer League game with Leuzinger, all nine Redondo starters were hitting over .300.

“We’ve come on in the last couple of games,” said Jenkins, whose team improved its record to 20-1 on Monday with a 27-2 drubbing of Morningside. “It’s our fastest start ever.”

Third baseman Nate Perry hit safely in the first 21 games and tops Redondo with a .457 average (32 for 70).

Others in the .300 club are pitcher-outfielder Henry Schelb (.426), pitcher-shortstop Scott Davison (.418), first baseman Tom Doyle (.397), catcher Robbie Zeller (.382), second baseman Brian Davison (.373), outfielder Dane McKay (.343), pitcher-outfielder Scott Taylor (.333) and outfielder Jason Shoitsugu (.309).

The big hitting numbers have helped Redondo reach the 20-win plateau sooner than any baseball team in school history. The 1981 Sea Hawks won 26 games, the school single-season record.

Greg Davis and Julie DeJaifre each pitched shutouts Tuesday to help their respective teams take over first place in the Bay League baseball and softball races.

Davis’ two-hitter carried North Torrance to a 3-0 win over West Torrance, breaking a tie for first, while DeJaifre hurled a one-hitter to help South Torrance beat Palos Verdes, 5-0, and assume the league lead for the first time this season.

Davis, a senior right-hander who was the Bay League co-most valuable player last season, is 4-1 in league play. North (8-2 in league, 13-7 overall) meets West (7-3, 12-5) again at 3 p.m. today at West.

DeJaifre, a sophomore, had a no-hitter for 5 innings before yielding a single. South (6-3), which has been on a tear the last few weeks, leads West (5-3) and Torrance (6-4) by a half-game in the standings.

Former St. Bernard football Coach Bill Seward has been named sports director for WNHT-TV, a CBS affiliate in Concord, N.H.

Seward, 29, a 1980 graduate of Loyola Marymount and former play-by-play basketball announcer for the Lions, has worked the past year as a sports anchor and reporter for KADY-TV in Oxnard.

His duties at WNHT-TV will include handling television play-by-play for University of New Hampshire football, basketball and hockey, in addition to serving as sports anchor.

When appointed at St. Bernard, Seward was one of the youngest head football coaches in the Southern Section at age 23. He guided the Vikings to three CIF playoff berths in as many years and compiled a 24-10-2 career record.

Centers Elden Campbell of Clemson and Eric Leckner of Wyoming, former South Bay prep standouts, are among 93 players invited to try out for the U.S. Olympic team, coached by Georgetown’s John Thompson.

The 6-10 Campbell, a sophomore, led Morningside to the 1985 CIF Southern Section 3-A title. Leckner, a 6-11 senior, graduated from Mira Costa.

The Redondo/Palos Verdes Baseball Tournament, most of which was rained out last weekend, will resume Saturday with semifinal games.

In championship-bracket games at Redondo, Leuzinger faces Gahr of Cerritos at 3 p.m. and Redondo meets Cerritos at 7.

In other games involving South Bay teams, Palos Verdes plays host to El Segundo at 11 a.m. and Westchester is home against Thousand Oaks at 1 p.m. in the ninth-place semifinals, West Torrance entertains Alemany at 11 a.m. in a consolation game and Gardena plays host to North Torrance at 11 a.m. in the ninth-place consolation bracket.

The finals are scheduled May 7.

PREP NOTES--Rolling Hills senior Bill Behrens won the singles title at the prestigious Ojai tennis tournament last weekend, beating Willie Quest of Long Beach Wilson, 6-2, 6-2, in the finals. The Titans finished in a four-way tie for the team title. . . . Members of the Morningside faculty will play the KGFJ All-Stars in a fund-raising basketball game at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Morningside. Proceeds will renovate the weight room. Ticket or donation information can be obtained by calling Carl Franklin at Morningside at 419-0421. . . . Mary Star became the first South Bay team to appear in the Southern Section coaches’ softball polls this season, moving into the No. 10 spot in the 2-A Division.

South Bay Top 10

Boys’ Baseball

Selected by Times sportswriters

(Records through Tuesday’s games)

Rank School (League) Record 1 Redondo (Pioneer) 20-1 2 St. Bernard (Camino Real) 13-3 3 El Segundo (Pioneer) 15-6 4 Banning (Marine) 11-6 5 North Torrance (Bay) 13-7 6 West Torrance (Bay) 12-5 7 Carson (Marine) 8-6-1 8 San Pedro (Marine) 12-5 9 South Torrance (Bay) 10-9-1 10 Leuzinger (Pioneer) 10-9