Improvement Is Goal of El Camino

Second-year El Camino College baseball Coach Glen LeVier said the Warriors have the talent to improve last year’s 14-21-1 record, but could use some depth.

LeVier said he opened preseason practices with 26 players, but now he has only 19. Eight of those are pitchers.

Five of the departed players were starters. Two of them were declared academically ineligible before the Warriors’ Feb. 1 opener at the Cerritos/Fullerton Tournament and one, left fielder Howie Kingsmill, underwent knee surgery earlier this month.

In addition, backup left fielder Mark Houser, center fielder Jason VonArx and third baseman John White were recently suspended indefinitely for disciplinary reasons, according to LeVier.

Houser, a transfer from USC, was El Camino’s lead-off batter. VonArx is a freshman from Millikan High and White, who was drafted by the Oakland A’s last summer, is a transfer from Long Beach City College.

“We had a good recruiting season and I thought we were going to be OK,” LeVier said. “Overall we’re still better than we were last year. We’re still capable of playing good defense even after being hurt by these problems.”

Despite the loss of ace Greg Davis, who signed with the Dodgers, the Warriors have pitching depth. The starting rotation will include freshman right-hander Phil Bendik (West Torrance) and sophomore right-hander Scott Diekmann. Freshmen Rick Clark and Keith Metoyer are battling for the third starting spot. Clark is a right-hander from El Segundo and Metoyer is a left-hander from Serra.

The Warriors’ top relievers are sophomore Ron Campbell and freshmen Benito Chavez (Leuzinger) and Willie Sanchez (Mary Star). Sanchez starts at third base when he is not pitching.

“We really don’t have anyone that’s overpowering, but we have good control,” LeVier said. “We’re very fortunate to have that.”

Brian Wixom, a second-team All-South Coast Conference selection last year, returns at first base. Tom Gordon, who started at third last year, starts at second and Tim Abrams will replace Denny Hocking (Minnesota Twins) at shortstop. Freshman Tony Pruett (North Torrance) is the catcher.

The outfield includes freshman Dan Jenkins (South Torrance) at left, freshman Mike Aguallo (North Torrance) at center and sophomore Rick Barrett at right.

LeVier expects the Warriors will have to play solid defense to win because no player is batting over .298.

“We’re going to throw strikes, play defense and scrape for a run here and there,” LeVier said.

The coach predicts the Warriors will finish somewhere in the middle of the South Coast Conference race. He says there is no outstanding team in the league this year.

Cerritos College, usually favored to win the conference title, lost, 2-0, to the Warriors at the Cerritos/Fullerton Tournament earlier this month. Last year El Camino finished 6-13-1 in SCC play. This season the Warriors are 5-8 overall and 0-1 in the SCC after losing, 10-4, to Long Beach on Tuesday.

“We’ll definitely improve last year’s record,” said LeVier, a former assistant at Long Beach. “This team has been through a lot already and I think that will force the kids to pull closer together.”