THE HIGH SCHOOLS / JEFF RILEY : Westlake’s Ill-Fated Bus Trip a Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Westlake High’s journey to Las Vegas for the Chaparral baseball tournament last week became a hellish trip shortly after the Warriors boarded their chartered bus Wednesday.

The bus overheated in Acton, less than an hour after the Warriors had left Westlake. Acton, in the Antelope Valley near Palmdale, was not on Coach Rich Herrera’s itinerary.

“Man, we were somewhere between here and hell, on the corner of Devil’s Road and Sympathy For The Devil Avenue,” Herrera said. “That town was so small that the sheriff worked out of his house. It was like the ‘Andy Griffith Show.’ ”

Players occupied themselves with a game of stickball while they waited for another bus.

“We had some kids go over to a little elementary school to see if we could take some batting practice, but they were kicked off right away,” Herrera said. “It was that kind of day.”

Herrera said that after a second bus arrived at noon, the hot, sweaty Warriors loaded their gear in less than a minute.

“Then that bus driver gets off that bus and says it blew a head gasket on the way,” Herrera said. “Our guys were fuming.”

Apparently, so was the weather.

“There was an AM/PM where we broke down, and we must have given them $300,” Herrera said. “They won’t have to sell anything for another three months.”

The second bus driver insisted a third bus would arrive in 45 minutes. An hour and a half later, the Warriors were on the road again.

The trip, which normally takes five hours, ended 10 hours later at 7 p.m., and Westlake was forced to cancel a visit to a comedy act in Las Vegas.

“Luckily, we weren’t scheduled to play until Thursday,” Herrera said.

Add breakdowns: Royal’s bus broke down en route to the Chino tournament last Monday and the Highlanders were five minutes late for their game against Colton, an eventual 11-1 loss.

“We would have been there on time, but the bus driver pulled off the freeway and nobody could see we were broken down,” Coach Dan Maye said. “The parents who were at the game knew something happened but couldn’t find us.”

Kicking it around: Thousand Oaks (9-4, 6-2 in league play) has worked its way into second place in the Marmonte League despite committing 30 errors in league play, an average of 3.8 a game.

“You’re in a lot of trouble when you commit that many a game,” assistant coach Garth Marcus said. “You just can’t do that and expect to win.”

Maybe the Lancers should lower their expectations. They made three more errors on Friday and beat Simi Valley, 5-4.

Lancer adjustments: Thousand Oaks shuffled its lineup Friday because of illness and ineligibility. Junior Brian Sturges has been declared academically ineligible and Brent Christenson, who had four hits in a 17-12 win over Channel Islands on Wednesday, has pneumonia.

“You have to give our kids credit for battling through a difficult week,” Thousand Oaks Coach Jim Hansen said. “They pulled together and would not go down.”

There for the taking: Former major league pitcher Sparky Lyle once said that the key to baseball is to remain thoughtless.

Apparently, Thousand Oaks senior Lance Martin has taken that belief to heart.

Martin blasted a two-out, solo home run in the seventh inning Friday that gave Thousand Oaks a 5-4 win over Simi Valley. The ball cleared two fences--the second borders a parking lot behind left field--and witnesses said that it landed in the middle of the parking lot.

So what kind of pitch did you drive almost 400 feet, Lance?

“A forkball,” Martin said, then paused. “I think. No, maybe it was a fastball. I don’t know. I was just trying to make contact, and it was just there.”

Leaders: Westlake (20-1, 8-0) has used outstanding pitching and defense to lead the Marmonte League since opening day.

Westlake’s pitchers have allowed an average of 2.9 runs and six hits in eight games and have been scored on in only 15 of 57 innings. Westlake’s earned-run average is 1.54, and, in 145 innings, the Warriors have walked 42 and struck out 114.

Defensively, Westlake has committed just 10 errors in league play, an average of a little more than one a game. Westlake committed 40 errors last year when it was 10-13.

Agoura turnaround: Agoura (9-8) has won seven of eight and leads the Frontier League with a 4-0 record. At one point, Agoura was 2-7, and Coach Gary Gray was relying on the Chargers’ difficult preseason schedule to pay dividends.

The Chargers recently won five in a row and finished second in the Thousand Oaks tournament.

“It could have been real easy for them to fold, especially after our start,” Gray said. “But I’m proud of way they held up.”

Agoura’s streak was accomplished without Brian Smith, a first baseman-pitcher who has signed a letter of intent to play at Arizona State.

Smith could not swing a bat for three weeks because of a fracture in his left forearm, but he returned this week and was three for seven--which raised his batting average to .375.

“We’ve had a little bit of a void without him, and we’ve done pretty well getting around it,” Gray said. “But it sure will be nice to have him down the stretch and for the playoffs.”

Better late . . .: Glendale right fielder Marco Rivas battled through an early-season slump, and, by Coach Chris Axelgard’s estimation, is batting about .700 in the Dynamiters’ past eight games.

The transformation occurred after Axelgard told Rivas to calm down and back off the plate. Because of his lack of production, Rivas also was temporarily benched.

How difficult was that decision?

Axelgard said that using a designated-hitter for Rivas was like “telling your beauty queen she’s ugly. You just don’t do that.”