PREP NOTES : Foe Excited About Facing Mighty El Segundo

After Wednesday’s 18-0 Camino Real League win over St. Monica, the El Segundo High School baseball team is averaging 16.4 runs per game, has outscored its opponents, 131-26, and boasts eight players batting over .300.

Is Redondo Coach Tim Ammentorp worried about facing the powerful Eagles in the second round of the Palos Verdes/Redondo Tournament on Saturday night?

Not in the least.

“We’ll try to keep them under 42 runs,” quipped Ammentorp, referring to El Segundo’s 42-0 victory over Serra last Friday.

Seriously, though, Ammentorp says the Sea Hawks have nothing to lose.

“This is an easy game to play,” he said. “Our players will be fired up and excited to play the best team in the area. If they can’t get excited about this, they shouldn’t play any more.”

Redondo and El Segundo will meet at 7 p.m. Saturday in the second game of a doubleheader at Redondo. Palos Verdes meets Crespi in the first game at 4.

Although he realizes his team is an underdog (who isn’t these days against El Segundo?), Ammentorp says there’s always hope of an upset.

“One thing about baseball,” he said, “you can’t predict what’s going to happen. The best team doesn’t always win.”

St. Bernard baseball Coach Bob Yarnall, a spectator at Recreation Park in El Segundo last Friday, said Serra appeared confident as it warmed up to meet El Segundo in a Camino Real League opener.

A few hours later, the Cavaliers were on the short end of a 42-0 decision, the second-highest run total in a game in Southern Section history. Whittier holds the record with 45 runs against Garden Grove in 1922.

“When it started out, it seemed Serra was pretty excited about playing,” Yarnall said. “They thought they could do pretty well against (El Segundo). Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.”

Serra, a young team with a first-year coach (James Durk), allowed the game to turn into a laugher by walking 22 batters and committing 12 errors.

El Segundo Coach John Stevenson played his entire roster, but there wasn’t much more he could do to keep the score from getting out of hand.

“You can’t tell kids to stop playing,” Yarnall said.

Yarnall says it’s difficult for some teams to play well against El Segundo because of the school’s mystique in baseball.

“El Segundo is very, very good,” he said. “But they also have the intimidation factor, where people think they are very good. A lot of teams go in there thinking they’re going to lose.”

Yarnall hopes it doesn’t happen April 6. That’s when St. Bernard faces El Segundo in a key Camino Real League game at Recreation Park.

Of El Segundo’s eight players hitting over .300, four entered Wednesday’s game hitting .500 or better--shortstop Mark Lewis (.577), first basemen-pitchers Jason Wayt (.571) and Tate Seefried (.520) and catcher Garret Quaintance (.500).

Seefried, the touted transfer from Spokane, Wash., by way of Rolling Hills High, hit two home runs Saturday in a 17-7 win over Muir to give him five in seven games. He also leads the South Bay with 17 RBIs.

Morningside center Lisa Leslie says she heard the question frequently when she began playing high school basketball four years ago: Do you think you’re going to be the next Cheryl Miller?

“I’d answer, ‘Lisa Leslie is fine,’ ” she recalled.

With 6-foot-4 sophomore Janet Davis following in Leslie’s footsteps, more comparisons are inevitable.

Does Leslie have any advice for her heir apparent?

“I think she knows that being Janet Davis is fine,” she said. “She can make a name for herself. She won’t have to be another me.”

Davis has already showed signs of breaking out on her own. She scored 14 points and pulled down seven rebounds Saturday as Morningside beat Berkeley, 67-56, to successfully defend its State Division I title.

In past seasons, Mira Costa’s volleyball team could always count on facing a fair amount of competition in its league.

This year, however, Coach Mike Cook says the Ocean League is shaping up as a cakewalk for the Mustangs, ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today.

“It’s just the breaks,” Cook said. “There have been times when Redondo and North Torrance, in particular, have given us good challenges. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this year.”

Mira Costa has swept each of its first three league matches in three games, a trend that, if it continues, won’t help the Mustangs prepare for the rugged competition they expect to face in the Southern Section 4-A playoffs in May.

Asked if poor league competition could hurt his team’s development, Cook replied: “I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. Orange County has two or three good teams in all their leagues. They’ll be better prepared for the CIF playoffs.”

PREP NOTES--Morningside’s Lisa Leslie set a girls state championship game record with 17 free-throw attempts in the victory over Berkeley. She made 11. . . . A player to watch in coming seasons is Torrance freshman point guard Tiffany Fujimoto, who averaged 11.8 points and 7.8 rebounds and earned a spot on the All-Bay League first team. . . . Palos Verdes, which scored a 6-3 victory over Hawthorne in an important Bay League baseball opener Tuesday, will travel to Hawthorne at 3 p.m. today for a rematch. . . . Terry Sullivan, St. Bernard football and basketball star who had hoped to earn a spot in the Vikings’ pitching rotation as a first-year baseball player, has been sidelined with a sore shoulder. . . . Three area guards--Bobby Kelly of Carson, D’Mitri Rideout of Narbonne and Damian Wilson of Westchester--have been named to the All-L.A. City 4-A basketball team.