Briggs Makes Grade With Simi Valley

Freshman Ryan Briggs became the first ninth-grader in Simi Valley High history to start in a baseball game when he opened at second base Tuesday in a nonleague home game against Canoga Park.

Briggs, 14, singled in three at-bats as Simi Valley won, 14-6, and improved to 2-1.

Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers also considered ninth-grader Kevin Nykoluk for the varsity. Nykoluk, who attends Valley View Junior High, became the first freshman to play at the varsity level Saturday when he pitched two innings and allowed one unearned run in an 8-3 loss to Edison. But Scyphers decided that Nykoluk wouldn’t see enough action to develop properly and Monday dropped him to the junior varsity.

“My philosophy is that you have to play almost every inning of every game in order to be up (at the varsity level),” he said. “Kevin didn’t get a great chance to prove himself because he was on the soccer team that made it to the (Southern Section 4-A Division) finals. But we don’t have time to play him into shape, so we just opted to send him back down.”

Briggs, who attends Sequoia Junior High, earned a starting position when third baseman Tyler Nelson sustained a shoulder injury and second baseman Joe Gordon moved to third.

Pitch-outs: Scyphers isn’t quite sure what to think of the new state rule that limits pitchers to 30 outs from Monday through Saturday. Previously, there was no limit.

Scyphers said the rule’s impact will be negligible during the Marmonte League season, in which teams play on Wednesdays and Fridays.

“You wouldn’t throw a kid on Wednesday then bring him back on a Friday anyway,” he said.

But the rule will have an impact on teams during tournaments and in postseason play, Scyphers said.

“It will affect teams early in the season, when they play a lot of games,” he said. “And it will have a bigger impact in the playoffs. A lot of teams have won with just one pitcher.”

Simi Valley, already thin in its rotation, plays six games in the first nine days of the season.

“We’ll find out real fast how it affects us,” Scyphers said.

How’s that?: Crespi will play host to Hart today in the El Segundo tournament-- at Hart. That is, Hart plays at Crespi today-- at Hart.

“They’re the home team but we have to use our yard,” Hart Coach Bud Murray said of the third-round game at 3 p.m.

Crespi plays its home games at Valley College. But scheduling conflicts forced the game to be moved to Hart.

Make sense?

The omen: Harvard opened Friday with a 5-4 victory over Palisades, which reached the City 4-A baseball final last season. What’s more, the Saracens generated their five runs with only one hit . . . and the help of their new lucky number: 666.

Harvard took advantage of six steals, six errors and six walks to win.

“To the purist, you’d have to say that was an ugly win,” Coach Jim Brink said. “But when we beat a school like Pali, I’d say there’s nothing ugly about it.”

Finals trio: Chatsworth juniors Kris Bassler, Kim Costantino and Heather Gorman have competed in four City Section championships in their initial four semesters of high school. They were members of the Chatsworth girls’ soccer teams that won consecutive City titles and were part of two runner-up volleyball teams.

“They have an impact on just about everything around here,” volleyball Coach Steve Berk said.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Sam Farmer, Vince Kowalick and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.

VALLEY BASEBALL TOP 10

Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk k Team League Record 1 1 El Camino Real West Valley 0-0 2 2 Kennedy North Valley 3-0 3 3 Hart Foothill 2-0 4 7 San Fernando North Valley 3-0-1 5 4 Birmingham Mid-Valley 2-1-1 6 5 Simi Valley Marmonte 2-1 7 6 Sylmar East Valley 2-1 8 10 Chatsworth West Valley 3-0 9 9 Poly East Valley 2-2 10 NR Camarillo Marmonte 3-0

NR--Not ranked.

Through Tuesday’s games.