Crash Claims Lives of 2 More Area Athletes : Fatalities: Number of deaths among student body at Sylmar alarmingly high. Softball pitcher for Spartans and San Fernando pitcher are victims in latest tragedy.

Students at San Fernando High will participate Monday in a ritual that has become all too common for north Valley teen-agers of late--the burial of a classmate.

Members of the San Fernando High baseball program will attend the funeral Monday of Uriel Fernandez, a 16-year-old junior who died in a car accident June 2. The service at San Fernando Mission will follow a Mass at 9:30 a.m. at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima.

Fernandez was a top pitcher on the school’s junior varsity baseball team who died at San Fernando Community Hospital after an accident that also claimed the life of Aracely Hernandez, an 18-year-old senior who was a pitcher on the Sylmar High softball team. A funeral service was conducted for her Friday.

Hernandez is the second athlete at Sylmar to have died in a car accident this spring. Ryan Vela, a senior right fielder, died in a March 25 accident in Pacoima.

“That’s our third senior to die this year and about 10 students in all, but I don’t even want to keep count,” Sylmar counselor John Geib said Friday. “I’ve been teaching for 22 years and we would occasionally lose a student every couple of years. But this is beyond reason or explanation.”

Fernandez and Hernandez were returning from a pep rally at Sylmar High about 9 p.m. when the accident occurred. Ray Vargas Servin, a 22-year-old Palmdale man, is facing two counts of murder after a vehicle he allegedly was driving sped through a red light and slammed into the car carrying the two students.

Servin allegedly was fleeing police when the accident occurred. He also has been charged with one count of assault with a firearm in connection with a shooting incident a few blocks from the accident.

Police originally labeled the shooting as gang-related but have since backed off that claim. Still, the prospect of more innocent youths victimized in an area that police characterize as rife with gang activity has sparked strong feelings in the San Fernando community.

“It’s real unfortunate when fine kids become victims in the overflow of gang violence, especially when he was as far away from gang violence as a farm boy from the Midwest,” San Fernando baseball Coach Steve Marden said.

Fernandez posted a 5-0 record and was promoted to the varsity for the playoffs. He also carried a 3.5 grade-point average in college preparatory classes and had a bright future as a student-athlete, according to Marden.

Fernandez will be commemorated at the team’s banquet Thursday when his uniform will be presented to his family.

“We’re talking about a special kid,” Marden said. “Although San Fernando High is publicized for those kind of problems, we know that there are a helluva lot more kids like Fernandez. . . .”