SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL NOTEBOOK : Top Pitchers Meet in 1-A Baseball Final

It will be a showdown between the top two pitchers in the 1-A, not only on the mound but at the plate as well, when Julian and Midway Baptist meet in the San Diego Section 1-A Baseball Championships at 3:30 p.m. today at Grossmont College.

Julian pitcher Travis Denmark (9-4) not only led the county with 149 strikeouts in 89 innings but finished up the regular season with a .625 batting average. Denmark hit his 14th home run of the season in Julian’s 7-0 semifinal victory over Imperial, bringing his RBI total to 44.

Then there’s Steve Smith (8-1). Being from a school of 55 students and a team which never made it past the first round of section playoffs until this year, Smith is like an unknown soldier.

The Midway Baptist senior, a four-year starter, has struck out 117 batters in 71 innings and is batting .568 with three home runs and 31 RBIs.

Both teams won their respective leagues and Denmark and Smith were their league’s most valuable players. Midway Baptist is in the Citrus League and Julian in the Coastal League.

Denmark will have a slight advantage having played in a section championship game before. Julian won the 1-A title in 1988, defeating Borrego Springs, 7-1.

“It will be a match-up of two very good pitchers,” Midway Baptist Coach Jerry Webb said. “Both are power pitchers.”

Julian Coach Carl Focarelli agreed: “No team will run away (with the victory). The game will be won in the pitching.”

Midway Baptist, which had never won more than 13 games in a season, has compiled a 21-3 record. Webb, whose team is senior dominated and will have only two returning players next year, expected to do well this season but was surprised to make it to the finals.

“The Holtville victory was a bonus,” Webb said of his team’s 8-4 semifinal victory. “We’re the smallest team in Citrus League and its very satisfying to take a few kids and see them work together the way they do.”

The other pitchers for Midway Baptist are senior Tobin Wilkins (8-2) and sophomore John Taylor (4-0). Taylor, the Patriots second leading hitter behind Smith, is batting .516.

Unlike Midway Baptist, Julian (19-6) is far from experienced. In fact, Focarelli figured this would be a rebuilding year for his team.

“No one expected us to win even eight games,” Focarelli said. “I knew we had Denmark but you can’t rely on just one guy.”

Julian starts three freshmen but Focarelli said that as the season progressed the seniors on the team helped the younger players mature.

Focarelli, like Webb, was surprised to come out of the semifinals victorious.

“Imperial is a much bigger school than us,” Focarelli said. “No one had given us a chance to beat them. The boys are really emotional (during these playoff games) and are playing at a different level.”

Denmark’s reliever, freshman Graham Koonce (10-2), who finished fourth in the county in batting with a .486 average, had struck out 80 this season.

Greg Ormsby has been named Poway’s water polo coach replacing Mark Miller, who retired after 16 years following his team’s 13-8 loss to Coronado in the San Diego Section finals last fall.

Ormsby has coached at Palomar College the past three years and is a junior high teacher in Chula Vista. He coached the Hilltop water polo team from 1976-81 collecting a section title in 1980.

Ormsby worked with the national junior development water polo training camp in the summer of 1982 in Colorado Springs. He coached Grossmont College from 1983-87 and has been at Palomar since.

Ormsby, who graduated from San Diego State in 1975, was a high school all-American in both swimming and water polo.

Laurie Smidt is one of the few softball players in the county who can say she started on four consecutive section championship teams.

Bishop’s won its fourth consecutive 1-A softball title Saturday by defeating La Jolla Country Day, 7-4.

“It feels great,” Smidt, a catcher, said. “Each one had special meaning but this one is extra special because its my last.”

This is not only Smidt’s final year at Bishop’s but probably her last competitive softball team as well. Smidt, who’s been on a softball team since she was seven, has opted not to play in college. Smidt will attend USC next fall and at most will play on an intramural team.

University City’s Chris Hansen, a foreign exchange student from Denmark who won the boys’ singles and doubles titles at the section badminton championships Thursday, said that he didn’t really know anything about the sport of football until he came to the U.S. In Denmark soccer and badminton are the most popular sports.

When asked what he thought about American sports, Hansen said:

“I don’t like baseball. It looks boring. Football sounded like a bunch of stupid big guys pounding each other over.”

Hansen, who finished with a 33-0 singles record, also earned a varsity letter in soccer at UC.

There won’t be a miniature football or a catcher’s mitt next to the basinet after Paula Zimmerman delivers her third child. Instead, there may be a pint-sized volleyball waiting.

Zimmerman, with a due date of June 11, coached her San Pasqual boys’ volleyball team to a 15-4, 15-17, 15-11, 15-8 San Diego Section 2-A victory against University City Friday night at Southwestern College.

Will it be a volleyball player? “I don’t know,” Zimmerman said. She and her husband, Bob, have two girls: Bonnie, 4 1/2, and Ellie, 2 1/2. “My girls are not too interested yet. Maybe if it’s a boy.”

Zimmerman said her doctors gave her clearance to coach throughout the season and she never got overly excitement.

“Most of our matches were pretty easy,” she said. “I assumed I’d be able to make.”

Kim Q. Berkshire contributed to this story.