AMERICAN LEGION : Winning Rally Ignites Celebration as Well as Opposing Coach’s Fuse

Watch the open flames. This situation looks as combustible as the surrounding foothills, and Kelly Magee is playing with matches and lighting firecrackers.

Magee’s Verdugo Hills team lost to Woodland Hills East, 10-9, Sunday afternoon. Bad enough that East scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth. Doubly bad that East celebrated its win in spirited fashion.

Even worse, the game was lost when an East batter sent a two-out single into the hole in right field.

That’s right, right field.

Verdugo Hills’ Scott Anderson, the team leader in runs batted in, was ejected by the plate umpire for arguing a called third strike in the sixth inning, Magee said. No big deal, except that Verdugo Hills had already exhausted its complement of reserves.

Legion rules allow a team to continue playing with eight men, provided there had been nine players to open the game. Magee said he opted to continue playing with just two outfielders.

Verdugo Hills led, 8-0, after three innings, but the lead dwindled. Nevertheless, entering the bottom of the ninth Verdugo Hills still held a three-run lead. Eight was enough, it seemed.

But East rallied, scoring two runs on a double by Benji Belfield and then placing runners at second and third. Magee re-entered starting pitcher Josh Canale, who struck out the East’s Nos. 4 and 5 hitters, Jamie Zeichick and John Erganian. But Carey Wilbur’s base hit to right drove in the tying and winning runs, igniting a celebration by the East and near-combustion by Magee.

“They acted like they just won the damn World Series,” Magee said. “They should have beaten us. That last hit was a routine fly to right, we just didn’t get to it.”

But East got to Magee, to be sure.

“They were the loudest group of pop-offs I’ve seen all year,” Magee said. “I couldn’t believe it, they were out of control.

“We need a rivalry, and I think we just found one.”

Add eight men out: East Coach Matt Borzello saw the game from a different perspective. Or from a different vantage point. Or planet.

About the only thing Magee and Borzello agree on is that they disagree.

On Wilbur’s hit to right, the one that Magee described as a “routine fly,” Borzello countered: “That’s a double down the line and into the corner. I don’t care how many guys they have out there. They don’t catch that ball.”

Borzello on the rally: “Them being short one guy didn’t matter at all. Every ball we hit from the (ejection) on was right at somebody. The ones we had in the ninth were all clean hits.”

Got the black-and-blues: Third baseman Colyn Van Buren is better known in some quarters as a standout running back at L. A. Baptist High. Yet Van Buren also has run over a pitcher or two this summer--and vice versa.

The senior-to-be is batting .360 with a .638 on-base percentage.

Some of the trips to first base were a little easier than others, though.

Van Buren has drawn 21 walks--twice as many as any other Panorama City player--and has been hit by a pitch nine times.

Football-baseball II: Camarillo outfielder Kasha Clemons will be a sophomore next fall at Ventura College, where he played defensive back on the football team. Two-sport star Clemons has been favorably compared to a rather famous major leaguer, but it isn’t Bo.

Clemons, 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds, reminds many of Kirby Puckett, the barrel-chested center fielder of the Minnesota Twins.

“Looks just like him,” Camarillo Coach Gary Wagner said.

Hits like him, too. Clemons is batting .517 and has six home runs for Camarillo, which is 12-2 overall and in first place in District 16 play at 8-2.

Add District 16: Shortstop Brent Christenson of Conejo might be the hottest player in Ventura County. In Spanish, conejo means rabbit, which seems to be how the ball behaves when Christenson takes his hacks.

Through his last four games, Christenson has four home runs and has driven in 14 runners. Much of the assault came in an interdistrict doubleheader last weekend at Turlock, Calif.

“I’ve never seen anybody on a better streak,” Conejo Coach Craig Sturges said. “He’s just denting the ball.”

Among other things. Sturges said one of Christenson’s home runs in Turlock traveled over the 395-foot sign in left-center and caromed off the hood of a car.

Last add District 16: If Christenson’s numbers won’t do, there’s always Jon McMullen of Camarillo, who went head-to-head with Christenson and Co. on Sunday and won.

McMullen, an infielder, hit four home runs in two games to key a doubleheader sweep of Conejo (15-6, 6-5) to conclude the first half of district play.

McMullen (6-3, 235), who will be a junior at Rio Mesa High in the fall, is batting .487. He is the son of former major leaguer Ken McMullen.

All-underrated team: Second baseman Brett Resnick of Las Virgenes might be among the area’s leading candidates for the Who-He Team, which seems to be about the only recognition the 1990 Calabasas High graduate has received.

Some say stats don’t lie. If so. . . .

As a junior, Resnick hit .354 at Calabasas; this season, he batted .437--but nevertheless was overlooked when the area’s major newspapers named their all-region teams. He is batting an even .500 for Las Virgenes.

The silver lining? Resnick earned a scholarship to UC Irvine and will play for the West team in the District 20 All-Star Game at Birmingham High on Sunday at 1 p.m.

And that’s a lot more than Woodland Hills West outfielder Jason Cohen can say. In his last two varsity seasons at El Camino Real High, he hit a cumulative .384 with 20 extra-base hits and 40 RBIs. Cohen was rock steady last year in left field for West en route to the Legion World Series title and he is batting .349 with seven extra-base hits and a team-high 22 RBIs this summer.

Yet Cohen has received no scholarship offers, wasn’t selected to any all-area teams, didn’t make the All-City Section team and wasn’t named to the district all-star roster.

Hot numbers for such a collective cold shoulder.

“I think it’s starting to get to him a little bit,” West Coach Don Hornback said. “But I’ll tell you what, when there are runners on base, he’s the best we have. He might be the best I’ve seen this year.”