Prep Review : Lane Hasn’t Made Up Mind on Where or What He’ll Play

A man for two seasons--The prep athletic career of Danny Lane of Laguna Beach High School quietly came to an end Thursday, when his baseball team was drubbed, 18-1, by Laguna Hills in the final Pacific Coast League game.

Though he played on a team that went 3-12 in league, 5-15 overall, Lane finished the season with stellar statistics.

As the starting shortstop, he batted .455, with 37 hits, tied the county lead for home runs with nine, hit nine doubles and three triples. But, hidden by his team’s record, Lane’s accomplishments as a four-year varsity starter went virtually unnoticed.

This is nothing new for Lane. He was also the starting quarterback on the football team and he had an outstanding football season, although he was overshadowed by the battle of the big names in the South Coast League.

During the regular season, Lane completed 146 of 221 passes for 1,877 yards. He threw 17 touchdown passes and had only four passes intercepted, finishing third in the county in quarterback ratings.

By contrast, Capistrano Valley’s Todd Marinovich, who passed for 2,118 yards and broke the national high school record, also passed for 17 touchdowns but had 13 interceptions and finished fourth in the ratings. Bret Johnson of El Toro, who finished second in the ratings, threw for 1,369 yards and 15 touchdowns with 3 interceptions. David Chisum of Sunny Hills finished atop the quarterback ratings.

Lane accepts the lack of limelight as part of life at Laguna Beach.

“Those guys (Johnson and Marinovich) are great,” said Lane, who will be playing for the South All-Star football team this summer. “They deserved all the attention they got. I just tried to do the best I could.”

Marinovich plans to attend USC and Johnson is going to UCLA. Lane is still weighing his options. A 3.6 student who has made the honor role every year of high school, Lane has his choice of colleges.

He also has his choice of sports. But Lane can’t choose and wants to find a college where he can continue to play football and baseball.

“I like football best during football season and baseball the best during the spring,” he said. “If I choose one I’m really going to miss the other.”

Lane, who is 6-feet 1-inch, 170 pounds, is being recruited heavily by UC Santa Barbara, which plays Division II football and Division I baseball. The school would welcome Lane in both sports. He is also considering Dartmouth, Pennsylvania and USC.

Lane has talked to USC’s baseball coach, Mike Gillespie, and has been invited by Coach Larry Smith to try out for the football team without a scholarship.

Lane’s father, Ron, went to USC in the early 1950s and played baseball. But Ron Lane, who served as the U.S. Olympics baseball commissioner in 1984, isn’t pressuring his son to either attend his alma mater or play his sport.

“He’s a very well-rounded athlete,” Ron Lane said. “If he went to USC he’d have to choose between the two sports, which he doesn’t really want to do. Not yet.”

Lane is currently leaning toward UC Santa Barbara. But the possibility of walking on at USC and competing against Marinovich for a position on the team intrigues him.

“I would kind of look forward to playing against (Marinovich),” Lane said. “We never played against each other and it would be interesting to see what I could do.”

Sun sets on Edison--The Southern Section baseball pairings will be announced today. But one team that believed on Friday it would be in the playoffs is now, through a twist of fate, out.

Edison High School is the victim of the Sunset League’s ruling Saturday that Westminster must forfeit its 7-6 victory on Friday over Ocean View. Had Westminster’s victory held up, Edison (12-12-1, 8-7) would have finished third in the league and advanced to the 5-A playoffs. But Westminster’s loss resulted in a tie for third between Edison and Westminster, with the playoff spot going to Westminster because the Lions had defeated Edison two out of three times this season.

The league principals ruled that Westminster used an illegal player against Ocean View, which lodged the protest. It violated a league rule that prohibits a player from playing against the same team at two different levels within the same week. The rule was broken when Westminster Coach Ken Ostrowski pulled catcher Dax Hammers in the sixth inning and replaced him with Angel Lopez, who had played Thursday on the Westminster junior varsity team against Ocean View.

“It’s very hard to get knocked out this way,” said Edison Coach Paul Harrell said. “If Westminster had just lost it would be one thing, but the kid they played had no bearing on the game.”

Ocean View, which would have finished fourth in the league and out of the playoffs, finished second to Huntington Beach with a 14-10-1, 8-6-1 record.

Future stock--Esperanza’s baseball team, by its own high standards, had a down year. The team, which won the Southern Section 5-A champion in 1986, was the 5-A runner-up last year and had won four straight Empire League championships finished third in the league this year (16-8, 10-5) behind league champion El Dorado and second place Los Alamitos.

But don’t write the Aztec program off yet. The future looks bright.

Esperanza’s frosh-soph team, comprised entirely of freshmen, posted a 20-1 record. The Aztec freshmen won 19 straight games after losing their only game to the Ocean View junior varsity. The team averaged 13.9 runs per game, outscored opponents, 291-102, and was 15-0 in league. It was the first league title for a frosh-soph team at Esperanza.

Three freshmen, outfielder Brian Harman, third baseman Rick Hills and catcher Jon Pitts have been added to the varsity roster for the playoffs.

Welcome to the 3-A--When Kennedy High School moved from the Empire League to the Garden Grove league last season, the softball team switched from Division 4-A to 3-A. And, heading into the playoffs, Kennedy is having a field day in the 3-A.

Last year, Kennedy stayed in the shadow of Empire League rival Cypress, which won the 4-A, and was knocked out of the playoffs early, finishing with a 21-9 record. This season, led by freshman pitcher Cheryl Longeway (20-2) and infielders Laurie Graper, Missy Gyde and Deanna Mayes, the Irish ran away with the Garden Grove League championship with a 14-0 record and head into the playoffs with a 21-4 record. Southern Section softball pairings will be announced today.

Just your average high school kid--Anyone who worries whether world-class athletes who are still in high school can manage to have a normal life should take a look at Janet Evans of El Dorado.

Evans, a junior in high school, holds world records in 800-meter, 1,500-meter and the 400-meter freestyle. Saturday night, at the Southern Section swimming championships at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach, Evans set high school records in the 500-yard freestyle (with a time of 4:37.30) and the 200-yard individual medley (2:00.72).

After completing her last event, Evans pulled herself out of the pool, went into the locker room, changed into her prom dress and headed off for the prom.

“It was fun, but I’m tired,” Evans said Sunday.

Prep Notes

Tami Chick of Huntington Beach High School has been named the Sunset League female athlete of the year. Chick, who played volleyball and basketball this season, has also competed in softball and track and field in previous years. This year, Chick was named to the all-Sunset League first team in volleyball and basketball, and made the Southern Section 2-A second team in basketball. She will attend Cal Poly Pomona in the fall, on a basketball scholarship. . . . Steve Popovich and Mike Thornton, Marina boys’ and girls’ basketball coaches, will host the Viking Basketball Camp beginning June 21 at Marina High. The camp, open to boys and girls from the third to seventh grade, will be conducted in two, two-week sessions. The first session is scheduled for June 21-30 and the second camp is scheduled for July 5-14. For further information, call Thornton at 893-6571. . . . Jon Cisneros, Los Alamitos wide receiver, has replaced El Dorado’s Chris Facione on the North team that will compete in the Orange County All-Star football game. . . . Jim Patterson, Esperanza athletic director, has announced an opening for a varsity water polo coach for the 1988 season. Interested coaches should contact Patterson at 779-0367. . . . Jim Austin, Mater Dei right fielder, tied the school record for RBIs with 40 in 20 games, matching the mark set by catcher Tony Folico in 1985. . . . For the record: Frank Wattles, a standout swimmer at Mission Viejo High School, was mistakenly called Dave Wattles in Thursday’s edition.