The High Schools : Granada Hills Well-Stocked at Quarterback

Frank Jamerson lives across the street from Granada Hills High. Sometimes when Jamerson, an assistant football coach at Cleveland, looks out his apartment window, he can’t help but feel a tad jealous.

There, tossing the football around on the Highlander practice field, is sophomore Bryan Martin, a quarterback who earlier this year transferred to Granada Hills from Illinois.

At Cleveland, where converted defensive back Lee Gatewood filled the position last year, Jamerson and Coach Steve Landress are again searching for a quarterback. Granada Hills, on the other hand, just keeps reeling them in.

“He always looks pretty good out there to me,” Jamerson said of Martin. “And it seems like he’s out there all the time.”

Last Saturday, in the first passing-league scrimmage of the spring, Jamerson and Landress got a closer look when Martin and junior quarterback Chris Gadomski split time against Cleveland in a non-scoring game.

“They kicked our butts,” said Landress, who apparently did not need a scoreboard to tell him which team dominated play.

Granada Hills Coach Darryl Stroh said that he thinks Martin could challenge Gadomski next season. Gadomski, a junior, passed for 1,158 yards and four touchdowns last fall but threw 11 interceptions and completed 48.6% of his passes.

“I thought they both looked pretty good,” Stroh said. “I think it should create a healthy competition for the two of them.”

Landress said that the performances of Gadomski and Martin evoked memories of Granada Hills’ most famous football alumnus.

Sort of.

“Gadomski and the new kid definitely looked sharp,” Landress said. “But the way we played defense, we would have made Pee-wee Herman look like John Elway.”

Split personality: How can one team be so successful on the mound while slumping so badly at the plate?

Meet the Saugus Centurions, who have pitched their way to a 10-2-2 record and a share of first place (4-0) atop the Golden League standings despite a team batting average of just .269.

When it comes to pitchers, the Centurions have more good arms than you can shake a Louisville Slugger at.

Saugus’ team earned-run average is 2.78, but it drops to 1.42 for starters Roger Salkeld and Scott Warr and reliever Glenn Terry, who have worked 78 2/3 of the team’s 94 innings.

Salkeld, a senior right-hander and the No. 3 high school prospect nationwide, according to Baseball America, is 4-0 with 75 strikeouts, 13 walks and an 0.52 ERA in 40 1/3 innings.

Warr, a senior left-hander, is 2-0 with a 2.13 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings. Terry, a senior right-hander, is 3-1 with a 3.75 ERA and 21 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings.

The Centurions, however, have had trouble swinging the Louisville Slugger. Coach Doug Worley’s team is just beginning to hit after its average hovered around the .230 mark most of the season.

Saugus, which hit a school-record 20 home runs last year, has hit just three this season.

Only two starters--Matt Tull (.429) and J. B. Johnson (.353)--are hitting better than .300. But Tom Burges (.258), Salkeld (.268), George Lopata (.282) and Trevor Rice (.185) continue to struggle.

Gives them the shakes: At Kennedy, what once seemed a shaky proposition now appears to be a much tastier offer.

First-year Coach Manny Alvarado told the team before the season that any player reaching base after getting hit by a pitch would receive a malt. Eleven games into the season, Kennedy batters have been plunked 18 times.

The leader? It isn’t even close. Senior outfielder Bruce Carreau had been hit nine times before he was sidelined after he sprained an ankle playing basketball last weekend.

“I never thought we’d have this many,” said Alvarado, who questions the sanity of any player who would be similarly assaulted for a mere malt. “All I know is I wouldn’t take that trade-off.”

Out of their league: Chaminade and St. Genevieve, San Fernando Valley League rivals, were scheduled to meet in the consolation bracket of the St. Paul tournament last week but mutually agreed to cancel the game.

Said Chaminade Coach Steve Costley, “We open league play against each other next week so I didn’t see the point in playing each other in a consolation game of a tournament.”

Win a few, lose a few: Cleveland, which has bolstered its basketball roster through the years by attracting top-quality players from throughout Southern California, lost one of its brightest young players last month when Randy Coleman moved to Chicago.

Coleman, a 6-foot-5, 190-pound forward, made the varsity this season as a 15-year-old freshman and was viewed as a potential starter next season.

Hard times: When Van Nuys defeated Reseda, 83-44, in a Mid-Valley League track meet last Friday, it was the Regents’ first dual-meet loss in the past three seasons, snapping a 20-meet victory string.

Assistant coach Steve Caminiti refused to make excuses for the loss, however, even though Reseda has lost several key athletes to transfers and academic ineligibility this season.

“I’ve always said that you have to go to battle with the soldiers you have,” Caminiti said. “And I’m not going to change that now. We may not be as strong as we hoped to be, but we’re not going to roll over for anyone.”

Reseda (4-1), the two-time defending West Valley League champion, has lost Aaron Whitehurst, William Childs and Keith Canty this season.

Whitehurst, the City Section champion in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles (personal best of 40.34 seconds) as a junior, transferred to Dorsey because of disciplinary reasons two weeks ago, and Childs, a City semifinalist in the varsity 110-meter high hurdles (15.34) last season, was ruled academically ineligible.

Canty, who clocked 2 minutes, 0.9 seconds in the 800 meters, moved out of Reseda’s district recently.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Vince Kowalick and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.