JC Notes : Playoff-Bound Harbor Baseball Team Gives Coach Jim O’Brien Win No. 400

Harbor baseball Coach Jim O’Brien is almost half way to the national junior college victory record. On Tuesday he earned his 400th in 14 years when his playoff-bound team trounced East L.A., 11-6.

The winningest active junior college baseball coach is Demi Mainieri at Miami Dade College North of Florida with 852 career wins.

O’Brien sees Tuesday’s victory more as a conference triumph than an important event in his career because it clinched the Southern California Athletic Conference title for the Seahawks, who are 13-2-1 in the SCAC (24-13-1 overall).

“We’re playing a lot better these days,” he said. “Our pitching, our catching and our hitting have been pretty good.”

Four Harbor regulars are hitting over .300. Freshman outfielder Ryan Karp leads at .364, freshman outfielder Matt Nuez is hitting .353, freshman infielder Jonathan Lopez is batting .345 and sophomore third baseman Steve Kristy is at .333.

Harbor pitchers are also doing well. Freshman Pat Ahearne has developed into one of the Seahawks’ most valuable hurlers. The 6-foot-3, 186-pound right-hander from St. Bernard High has an 8-4 record and a 3.42 earned-run average.

El Camino baseball Coach Tom Hicks is singing a much different tune. The Warriors are 7-10 in the South Coast Conference (25-16 overall) after Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to Pasadena.

A big part of the problem is pitching. El Camino ace Lucio Chaidez, an all-league player last year, has not been in full stride this season. The 6-foot-5 sophomore, who compiled a 10-5 record last season, felt a pinch in his right arm during the first week of league play and hasn’t been the same since.

“It just got progressively worse,” Hicks said. “A week and a half ago he did great against Mt. Sac, but it got bad again. Losing him hurt us because we figured he’d be a big wheel this year. We figured he’d start 50% of the games and win most of them.”

Sophomore Todd Denhart (Redondo High) has picked up some of the slack. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound right-hander has had two complete-game victories in the last three weeks and his record is 4-1. He recorded road wins against Pasadena and Long Beach but suffered his first loss against Pasadena.

“Right now we’re tied for third (in the SCC) and we definitely expect to make the playoffs,” Hicks said. “I don’t mean to make excuses about the way we’re playing, but losing Lucio is just like the Dodgers losing Orel Hershiser.

Carlos Carbajal, one of El Camino’s top cross-country runners, is a bright spot on the Warriors’ struggling track team, which ended SCC competition with a 2-2 record.

This season the freshman from Mexico ran the state’s second-best 5,000-meter race, 14:50.7.

At the Bronco Invitational in Pomona in March he ran the state’s best steeplechase in 9:17.8. Carbajal injured a hamstring at Pomona and hasn’t competed since.

But El Camino Coach Bill Moreno says the talented freshman will be back for the SCC meet this week at Cerritos College.

“He’s been working out and I think he’ll do good,” Moreno said. “Plus we have a couple of other guys that are going to add a lot of points to our team total.”

They include long jumper Ronnie Martin, whose 24-11 leap is one inch shy of the state’s best this season. The freshman from Chatsworth High earned the mark at the Bakersfield Relays.