Monroe Leads a Charmed Life in Playoffs

Tim Costic was at the plate with two out and two runners on in the top of the eighth inning in Wednesday’s City Section 4-A Division baseball playoff game at Poly High. The Monroe first baseman was facing Greg Nealon, Poly’s All-City pitcher, and had worked the count to 2-and-2. In the stands, Pat Costic, Jackie Clark and Anita Eldridge (the respective mothers of Tim, catcher Adam and shortstop Brian) were working their good-luck charms. The three rubbed baseball cards, held hands in a circle and did everything for the Vikings but pray to Loki, the Norse god of mischief and luck.

Back on the field, Tim singled to right and ended up scoring when the Poly right fielder let the ball roll under his glove. The Vikings won, 4-2. Two days later, Costic’s three-run home run in the eighth gave Monroe a 5-4 victory over Banning and a berth in the semifinals Tuesday against Canoga Park, the defending champion, at Birmingham High.

Although no one is claiming the good-luck charms are responsible for the resurgence of Monroe (11-16), which finished fourth in the Mid-Valley League and had to beat league opponent Birmingham in a wild-card game just to make the playoffs, no one is saying those lucky charms are useless, either.

“I’m getting superstitious,” Tim said. “I’m wearing the same shirt, the same socks.”

All three mothers have attended Monroe games regularly but didn’t start rubbing pennies and cards--that say, ‘I love baseball’--until the playoffs began.

“We’re just a little club of crazy mothers,” Anita Eldridge said. “We just rub them to keep us from going nuts.”

And while the mothers have been busy in the stands, their sons have been productive on the field. Costic, who pitched only 16 innings during the regular season because of an inflamed nerve in his elbow, pitched the last inning of the Poly game to pick up a save, then threw eight innings against Banning for the win.

Costic said he told Monroe Coach Kevin Campbell before the Banning game that he could pitch about four or five innings, or about 70 pitches. “But all the way through, it felt fine,” he said.

Eldridge, meanwhile, has been tearing up opposing pitching. Eldridge is 7 for 10 in the three postseason games and 22 for 31 in his past nine games.

With three supportive mothers and their good luck charms in the stands, the team is in good hands.

Scintillating experience: Though the 200-meter final at the City Section track championships at Birmingham High on Thursday did not produce a record, it did create an electrifying atmosphere rarely seen at a high school track meet. Or any meet for that matter. “It was really something,” said Chatsworth’s Ron Martin, who originally placed fourth in 21.98 seconds but moved up a spot after third-place finisher Donovon Burks of Washington was disqualified for running out of his lane. “I’ve never heard that much noise before a race. It was really exciting.”

Five minutes before the race, which pitted two-time defending state and City champion Quincy Watts of Taft against this year’s national leader, Bryan Bridgewater of Washington, everyone in the crowd stood. And all around, wagers were being made as the race drew closer.

A hush fell over the crowd as the starter called the runners to their marks, but the instant the gun was fired, a huge roar began that built in intensity all the way to the finish line.

“That was unreal,” one reporter said in amazement after Bridgewater had defeated Watts, 20.89 seconds to 21.14. “I saw this little kid sitting on the fence, he couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old, and he was chanting, ‘Quincy, Quincy, Quincy.’ You’d have thought he was Mick Jagger or something.”

Add Watts: The Toreador senior appeared to be in a state of shock moments after losing his first high school championship race since the 1986 state finals at Cerritos College, during which Ronald McCree of Madera High near Fresno beat Watts in the 100.

“My legs just didn’t have it in the last 100,” said Watts, whose last loss in any championship was to Ryan Drummond of Odessa (Tex.) Junior College in the 200 at The Athletics Congress junior championships in Tucson, Ariz., last year. “I tried to lift like usual, but my legs just didn’t have it.”

Scott free: The very picture of dejection, Scott Sharts, stripped to his sliding pads, sat hunched in Esperanza’s visiting dugout and fielded questions from several reporters.

Minutes earlier, Sharts’ Simi Valley team had been thoroughly embarrassed by Esperanza, and thus eliminated from the 5-A playoffs.

“It’s kind of hard to believe,” Sharts said softly.

Sharts, however, did not go quietly in his senior season. He led the Southern Section with 15 homers, one shy of the season record. His batting average topped .500 for most of the season until a late mini-slump pulled it down. Ironically, Friday’s 10-1 loss dropped his pitching record to 10-1.

“I’m proud we went this far,” said Sharts, who already has signed to attend Miami (Fla.). “I still think it was the best team I ever played on, by far.”

An oversight: It was just ordinary tap water, but when Chatsworth pitcher Derek Wallace swigged down a glass of water at teammate Rex McMackin’s house last month, it cost teammate Shawn Bowen $40.

Members of the Chancellor baseball team frequently sleep over at McMackin’s house. That night, Bowen forgot his contact-lens holder so, instead of sleeping with the contacts on, Bowen put the lens in a two glasses by the sink in McMackin’s bathroom.

Later that night, Wallace woke up thirsty--enough so that he failed to notice he was swallowing one of Bowen’s contact lenses. “It was just water, there wasn’t any solution,” Wallace said. “We didn’t even notice until the next morning.”

Valley elite: Last Thursday started the same as any normal Thursday for Mike Marzahl, the City 3-A volleyball co-Player of the Year from Reseda.

But by the time Thursday was over, Marzahl felt like the luckiest guy in the world. In the morning he received his letter of intent from Cal State Northridge and in the afternoon he received a letter inviting him to the National Elite Junior training camp in July.

“All that happening in one day was great,” Marzahl said. “It was probably one of the happiest days of my life.”

Marzahl wasn’t the only area volleyball player invited to the camp: Chatsworth’s John Ross and Agoura’s Shannon Matthews and Dawn Krenik also will participate in the five-day camp at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The four attended a regional tryout at Stanford earlier this month and 36 boys and girls from those tryouts were invited to Boulder. The top 12 players from the camp, which runs July 11-16, will be selected for the national junior team. That team will play other national teams, including a Canadian team, later in the month.

Recovering Regent: Coley Kyman, the Reseda volleyball player who missed the City 3-A championship after he was admitted to a hospital with spinal meningitis, was released Friday although he has not been completely cured.

“I’ve got a bit of a headache, but I’m OK,” said Kyman, a junior who shared player-of-the-year honors with Marzahl. “I thought I’d be better, but my head still hurts.”

Kyman was admitted to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Warner Center the night before the championship match complaining of severe headaches.

Tests were inconclusive because penicillin Kyman took earlier in the week to combat pneumonia interfered with the test, but the attending physician said Kyman probably was suffering from spinal meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes of the spinal cord.

Kyman took antibiotics this week and began feeling better Wednesday.

“I think I’ll be fine. I just wish my headache would go away,” he said.

A basketball Jones: Calabasas’ new basketball coach, Dave Hoffman, was raised in Charleston, W. Va., the same hometown as UCLA Coach Jim Harrick and 20 miles away from the town where Jerry West first began shooting basketballs.

Hoffman, who replaced Bill Bellatty as the Coyote coach, is proud of his birthplace, a town where basketball dominates conversation.

“We don’t have as many distractions as you do in California,” Hoffman said. “Basketball is my life and West Virginia is basketball country. I talk and think about it 24 hours a day. My wife will attest to that.”

Bellatty said he plans to return to his position after a yearlong sabbatical, but Hoffman is not concerned about the possibility of being out of a job.

“All coaching positions are for one year,” Hoffman said. “I plan to do a good enough job that they’ll want me back.”

Staff writers Tim Brown, Sean Waters and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.