High School Notebook : San Fernando Fell a Few Words Short of Ultimate Goal

Steve Marden, it appears, is a man of his written word--but to a fault.

Before the baseball season began, the San Fernando High coach and his team formulated a series of goals. It was, Marden thought, the best route to Chavez Ravine.

The final goal, presumably in underlined capital letters, read: “Get to Dodger Stadium.”

In his zeal, however, Marden overlooked one detail. Something like: “. . . and win the City championship.” The Tigers lost in the City Section 4-A Division final to Monroe, 3-2, Thursday.

“My expectations did not go a step beyond,” Marden said. “It was one game, one paragraph, one sentence understated.”

San Fernando achieved its goal when it knocked off favored Chatsworth, 5-2, in the semifinals. For that shortsightedness, Marden readily accepts the blame.

“You know what?” he asked rhetorically. “A lot of the thing about losing there was pretty much my fault.”

It was not, however, in the truest sense of a coach losing a ballgame. Marden did not pull his starter too soon. Or too late. He did not pinchhit at the wrong time. Or foolishly run his team out of an inning.

It all came down to one slip of paper, with a series of numbers and a series of goals scribbled more than three months ago.

“I hope by just rewording our goals this won’t happen again,” Marden said.

Add San Fernando: Marden took Friday off from school to regroup. He has not seen any of his players since the game.

“The kids were really broken up about it,” Marden said.

And himself?

“I’m disappointed--not at the loss, but in that we didn’t play well,” he said. “To get there, we had to beat the No.1 team in the nation. To get there we played a super team and a super game.

“The only regrets all of us have is that we did not play well that night.”

Marden, who was preparing to watch his son play T-ball when reached by phone Saturday afternoon, was nonetheless cheerful.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t call Friday,” he said, “because I was a lot less philosophical.”

Pirates Get Sharts: Simi Valley’s Scott Sharts, the Southern Section’s career home run leader, received notice Saturday that he had been drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The telegram pronouncing the Pirates’ selection brought a sigh of relief to Sharts, who has signed a letter of intent to attend Miami (Fla.) in the fall.

Friday was the final day of the three-day Major League Baseball free-agent draft.

“I was kind of wondering if it was going to happen or not,” said Sharts, whose brother, Steve, pitches for the Philadelphia Phillies’ double-A team in Reading, Pa. “I was sitting here without a call and thinking maybe they think I can’t do it.”

The telegram gave no indication as to which round he was selected in but stated that a scout would be in contact with Sharts.

“It’s what I’ve been working for,” he said. “It’s something I’ve wanted all my life.”

Sharts said he will wait to hear what the Pirates will offer before deciding whether he will make good on his letter of intent.

Add draft: Canoga Park’s versatile Adam Schulhofer was notified Saturday that he was chosen by the Atlanta Braves.

The co-most valuable player of the West Valley League batted .411 and was 3-0 on the mound with a 2.85 earned-run average during the regular season. He is currently playing for the semipro San Fernando Valley Dodgers.

Like Sharts, Schulhofer will have to choose between a college scholarship and the potential riches and risks of professional baseball. Schulhofer, who has signed a letter of intent with UCLA, was with the Dodgers in Santa Maria on Saturday and was unavailable for comment.

Civil war: Tryouts for the South team for the North-South All-Star baseball series will be held next Sunday at Rancho Santiago College, where 20 of Southern California’s top players will be chosen to play in the three-game series June 11-13 in San Diego.

Sharts will try out for the South team. If he makes it, he will be the fourth player from Simi Valley to have participated, joining Dave Milstein, Shaun Murphy and Eric Fisher.

Quarterback shuffle: By the time the Ventura County All-Star football game is played June 18 at Oxnard High, Thousand Oaks’ Marc Monestime might be more than just your average county career rushing leader.

Santa Paula’s Will McInerney and Thousand Oaks’ Steve Sisco, the East team’s quarterbacks, have sore arms. McInerney will remain on the team but will not play quarterback. Sisco will start if he can overcome his injury.

Westlake quarterback Bob Grandpre, who originally declined an invitation to play because of previous commitments, is reconsidering, according to East Coach Bob Richards.

In the meantime, Monestime, who last season set the Ventura County career rushing record, has been taking snaps in practice.

“He sure wasn’t going to throw the ball a whole lot, but we sure would have had some running out of the quarterback position,” Richards said.

Aussie holiday: Rumi Takahashi, an All-West Valley League volleyball player at Kennedy in 1985, has been named to the national university soccer team . . . in Australia.

“It’s like being made All-American over here,” said Marcia Takahashi, Rumi’s mother and the girls’ soccer coach at Alemany.

Takahashi, a junior at UC Berkeley, is studying for a year at the University of Melbourne on an “education abroad” program. She has been playing center-halfback for Melbourne and was one of 15 players across Australia named to the national team.

Steven Herbert and staff writer Chris J. Parker contributed to this notebook.