Cook Makes Big Impression in Leading East to 9-6 Victory : High school baseball: Montclair Prep standout, Saugus catcher Johnson put a dent in West team in all-star game.

Keyaan Cook waited years for a shot at the big time, although use of this phrase makes him grimace.

Like everyone else, Cook, a four-year starter at Montclair Prep--a Southern Section 1-A Division school--wasn’t eligible to play in the Daily News all-star baseball game until his senior year. And until he did play, he heard all the bad jokes about playing at a school that’s roughly the size of a warehouse.

“It doesn’t make a difference how big the school is,” said Cook, the 1-A Division Player of the Year. “If you’re good, you’re good. And if you’re good, you’ll shine in this game.”

In leading the East team to a 9-6 victory over the West at Cal State Northridge on Saturday, Cook and J. B. Johnson were downright blinding.

Cook, who played in the outfield for the first time in his high school career, had two hits and two runs batted in. Johnson, a catcher from Saugus, a 2-A school, had three hits and two RBIs and was selected the game’s most valuable player.

The victory was the East’s fifth in a row and its seventh in eight games.

Cook and Johnson keyed a second inning in which the East scored four times off starter Pat Treend of El Camino Real, who took the loss. With the score tied, 1-1, Cook lined a two-out, bases-loaded single off the chest of West shortstop Tim Falsken of Westlake, driving in a run.

Treend then coaxed Johnson into a pop foul behind the plate, but catcher Bobby Kim of El Camino Real dropped the ball for an error. Granted a stay of execution, Johnson slammed a 3-2 fastball into center to drive in two runs.

Kevin Milligan of Notre Dame followed with a run-scoring single to give the East a 5-1 lead.

The production of Cook, who batted cleanup, and Johnson didn’t exactly surprise East co-Coach Jerry Cord of Poly.

“The first day of practice, Johnson was really tarring them,” Cord said. “I’m thinking, ‘Give me a kid like that any day.’ ”

Cord says Cook rates A-1 in his book.

“That kid’s 1-A in name only,” he said.

Cord knows from experience. He coached Cook’s older brother, Toi, in the East’s 9-2 victory in 1984. Toi, now a defensive back for the New Orleans Saints, played baseball and football at Stanford after graduating from Montclair Prep.

“Keyaan gets no respect,” said East left-hander Andrew Lorraine of Hart, who pitched three innings and allowed one unearned run in picking up the victory. “I played with the guy in the fall and he hit about .500. And that was against college guys.”

West rallied to within 5-3 in the fourth on run-scoring singles by Garret Anderson of Kennedy and Falsken off Eddie Castellanos of Poly.

Leading, 6-4, East put the game away with three runs in the eighth. Johnson led off with a one-out single to right, his third hit, and moved to second on a single by Matt Jones of St. Francis. Ryan Kadletz of Crescenta Valley singled to drive in Johnson and John Najar of San Fernando, who pitched the eighth and ninth to earn a save, doubled in Jones and Kadletz with a looper to right-center that barely eluded Brent Christenson of Thousand Oaks.

Najar allowed a two-out, two-run single to Joe Tushnet of Reseda in the ninth to cut the lead to three runs before retiring Christenson on a bullet to third that Richard Sanchez of San Fernando snared with a dive to his left.