Schaeffer Won’t Put Foot in Mouth Over Injury

Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer is usually a straight shooter. He’s not one to sidestep reporters’ questions, except when it is the week of the Regents’ Mid-Valley League showdown with Monroe and the subject is quarterback Coley Kyman’s injured ankle.

Then Schaeffer can hem and haw with the best.

Although Schaeffer assured a reporter that Kyman’s sprained ankle has completely healed, he refused to say which ankle was injured.

“I don’t like making a big deal out of injuries,” he said. “Because I don’t want it to be used as an excuse and I don’t want any kids taking cheap shots at the ankle.”

Though Kyman missed the second half of the Regents’ 41-0 victory over Van Nuys last week, Schaeffer said he is running full bore and raring to go.

Kyman, a second-year starter, has completed 38 of 67 passes for 742 yards and 8 touchdowns and has thrown 2 interceptions. Based on the NCAA passing-efficiency formula, Kyman has a sparkling rating of 183.1.

The combo plate: Chaminade’s pass combination of Greg Baumgartner to Brady Mitchell suddenly is the Valley’s best.

And no one knows why.

“Isn’t that incredible?” Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson said. “I don’t know anything about the pass. I’m a running coach. But you got to go with what they’re giving you. I like to run, but my receivers are open.”

Said Baumgartner: “It surprises me, too.”

Baumgartner, a senior, has completed 101 of 190 for 1,549 yards and 19 touchdowns, both highs in the Valley area. Mitchell, a senior, has 45 receptions for 724 yards, also tops in the Valley.

Priedkalns update: Erik Priedkalns, the Westlake football player who underwent emergency surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain after collapsing during a game Oct. 7, is at home and “feeling all right,” he said Thursday.

Priedkalns, a senior linebacker and halfback, has had subsequent surgery to reduce swelling.

“I’m feeling all right, pretty much normal,” Priedkalns said. “I’m fortunate, but I wasn’t really worried about it when it was going on. My father is a doctor, so I have faith in the medical profession.”

Priedkalns is being tutored at home and said he would return to school perhaps as early as next week. He will not rejoin the football team.

Upset-minded: Does Saugus have a chance to upset Golden League powerhouse Antelope Valley tonight at College of the Canyons? “It’s not out of the question,” Saugus Coach Dick Flaherty said. “We have to play a phenomenal game and hope they’re disillusioned after being beaten last week.”

True, Saugus (1-7-1), which won its first game last week against Quartz Hill, must deliver a powerhouse performance. And true, Antelope Valley (6-2, 2-1), upset by Canyon last week, 10-9, likely would have to come out flat.

But that is out of the question, according to Antelope Valley Coach Brent Newcomb. “We’re going to take Saugus like it’s another game,” he said. “If they beat us, I’d say it’s an upset.”

Postgame analysis: Village Christian Coach Mike Plaisance was able to make light of his team’s 21-7 loss to Western Christian Saturday, the Crusaders’ first defeat. “I thought it was appropriate that we lost the same day that the No. 1 team in the nation, UCLA, lost,” he quipped.

Plaisance did bemoan his team’s inability to control the ball: Western Christian ran 65 plays to 38 for Village Christian.

Giving something back: When the Taft baseball program needed a helping hand to finance a retractable outfield fence, real estate broker Mike Glickman answered the call, thanks to second baseman Jason Shapiro.

When Glickman first started out in the Valley, he paid neighborhood youngsters to distribute his flyers. One of those 8-year-olds was Shapiro, whose father Andy called Glickman on Taft’s behalf.

“Mike said he remembered Jason and he agreed to give us what we wanted,” Andy Shapiro said.

So at Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the Taft High Booster Club, Shapiro presented the school with a Glickman check for $3,000 to be used for the new fence.

Staff writers Tim Brown, John Lynch, Vince Kowalick and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.