Lack of Support Hurt Pitcher at Higher Level

The differences between 2-A and 1-A high school baseball were apparent during the Lions tournament last week.

Julian’s Travis Denmark, among the county leaders when pitching against 1-A teams, was looking forward to a chance to show his stuff against 2-A competition. Playing against stronger teams, he thought, would erase the stigma attached to his statistics: 82 strikeouts in 46 innings and 0.88 earned run average.

But Denmark didn’t pitch as well as expected.

The senior right-hander allowed 15 runs and 10 hits in 10 innings (three games), Coach Carl Focarelli said.

Ugly? Well, consider that only five of the runs were earned. Focarelli said Julian’s defense failed to provide support.

“It was an unjust evaluation of his pitching ability,” Focarelli said. “At that level, the difference is defense, and (our opponents) made the plays, and we didn’t.”

Rancho Buena Vista entered the El Dorado Sundevil Baseball Classic at 7-4-1, and some coaches around the Palomar League were thinking the Longhorns were playing as well as anyone in the county.

That was then. RBV finished a disappointing 1-3 in Las Vegas, dropping to a rather average 8-7-1.

“We’re not playing that bad,” Coach Steve Hargrave said, “but we’re sure not playing like we were last week.”

He then put his team’s poor showing in perspective: “At least it happened in the tournament and not in league; next week, it could hurt us.”

The Longhorns, 3-0 in league play, face Fallbrook today and undefeated Mt. Carmel on Friday.

Most athletes would be ecstatic to have their name and picture appear in a national sports publication. But when Amy Goodwin showed up in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd” this week, the Bonita Vista soccer team’s goalkeeper acted as if it was an everyday happening.

“It was kind of neat,” Goodwin said nonchalantly.

Goodwin, a senior, set a state record for shutouts with 59 in only 2 1/2 seasons.

“ESPN came out and shot a segment on Amy,” Bonita Vista Coach Ron Pietila said. “It hasn’t been aired yet, but that may be how Sports Illustrated found out about her.”

Rudy Casciato, Poway’s baseball coach, said his team was complaining about the heat in Las Vegas, where the Titans were playing four games in three days at the El Dorado tournament. But a junior varsity player, Russell Clark, found a way to keep the opposition cool in the desert, earning a victory and a save.

Clark, a 5-foot-7, 145-pound junior, had thrown a no-hitter against Vista on Friday, then made the trip to Vegas with the varsity.

“You don’t want to crush your staff,” Casciato said. “We needed help for the number of innings we were going to play, but he’ll probably go back down to the JV.”

Clark earned his victory in relief, the benefactor of a five-run seventh inning to score an 8-7 victory over Las Vegas Western. He picked up the save the next afternoon against Las Vegas Basic. Entering the game with one out and runners at first and second, he induced the batter to ground to the shortstop, ending the game in a 6-4-3 double play.

“It was an interesting six days for the boy,” said Casciato. “He was real excited.”

And which one is the Real Thing? Pepsi, not Coca-Cola, was served in the concession stands at the Orange Glen/Coca-Cola Easter Softball Tournament last week at Kit Carson Park.

Christian’s Tony Clark and Monte Vista’s Joe McNaull have been selected to play in the second McDonald’s Western Wildcat game in Tucson Saturday. It features 12 of the top players in the West against a team of players from the rest of the country.

John Geis, Martin Henderson and Jim Lindgren contributed to this story.