Glendale Rallies Around Vlcek : College baseball: Vaqueros pull together after their sophomore pitcher is involved in an accident.

The Glendale College baseball team did not finish its nonconference schedule with a winning record by accident.

In fact, one of the reasons 13th-year Coach Steve Coots believes the Vaqueros will begin their Western State Conference schedule this week as a contender is because of an accident that involved pitcher Gary Vlcek.

Vlcek, a sophomore right-hander from Sierra Madre, was leaving the Stengel Field parking lot after practice a few weeks ago when his mini-truck was totaled in a collision with an automobile. Players and coaches heard the impact and rushed to the scene. Vlcek was not seriously hurt.

“I think it made the group tighter because everyone hung around to make sure Gary was OK and that things gotten taken care of,” Coots said. “At one point, we thought we were going to have to take up a collection to get his truck towed.

“Nobody left and I think that’s a sign of certain things this team has going for it.”

If the accident itself was not enough of a rallying point for the Vaqueros, Vlcek’s performance the next day against Antelope Valley certainly was.

Despite bruises and fatigue, he pitched seven scoreless innings as Glendale won, 7-1, to improve its record to 8-5.

“When it’s my turn to pitch, I’m going to be out there unless my arm is broken,” Vlcek said. “My body felt weak after the accident, but my arm felt great.”

Vlcek quietly has emerged as one of the key components for a Glendale team that won two tournament titles without the benefit of a single physically outstanding player.

Vlcek, for example, is hardly intimidating at 6-foot-1, 165 pounds. He does not throw hard or have an outstanding out pitch.

He does, however, throw strikes. Lots of them. In 35 innings this season, he has given up 39 hits and walked only five while compiling a 4-1 record and 3.60 earned-run average.

“He’s very competitive and he’s learned how to hit spots and change speeds,” Coots said. “The defense plays well behind him because they’re on their toes.”

Despite his success, Vlcek’s emergence as the Vaqueros’ top pitcher is somewhat of a surprise. After compiling a 5-2 record in his senior year at Pasadena High in 1988, Vlcek tried out for baseball at Cal Poly Pomona but quit the program when he was asked to spend a year on the junior varsity.

Last season, he transferred to Glendale and was used sparingly.

“I knew I could start,” he said. “I just had to go out and prove it.”

Vlcek pitched well last fall, but like the Vaqueros--who lost their final six preseason games--Vlcek did not how he would fare once the real games began.

He did not have to wait long to find out.

In the season opener against Southwestern, Vlcek threw a seven-hitter in a 7-2 victory.

Four days later, he pitched against College of the Desert and lasted only two innings.

“I thought I was ready, but my arm was still tired,” Vlcek said. “I knew I needed another good game to get my confidence back.”

Vlcek regained his form and his confidence in his next start when he gave up six hits, struck out nine and did not walk a batter in a 5-2 complete-game victory over Kings River.

He got bombed for three runs in the first inning against San Diego Mesa before correcting a mechanical problem that enabled him to pitch all nine innings of a 9-6 victory.

“That was the epitome of his year,” Coots said. “It’s easy to pitch when everything is going right. But (at San Diego), everything he threw was hit--and was hit really hard.

“He knows enough about the mechanical end of pitching to make an adjustment when he needs to.”

Coots is hoping the rest of the Vaqueros will respond in similar fashion once they begin play in the highly competitive WSC.

Last season, Glendale had some outstanding individual players, but the Vaqueros stumbled to a 12-26 record, 6-14 in conference play.

“Last year, before we started our first practice, everyone was together in a classroom and we looked around at each other and thought, ‘We’re going to have a good team,’ ” Vlcek recalled. “I wish I could say what went wrong. The talent was definitely there. A lot better than this year.”

With players like Vlcek at the forefront, this season’s Vaquero team appears to possess the intangibles that were absent in 1990. Several times this season, Glendale has rallied for victories.

Coots and Vlcek believe those intangibles will propel the Vaqueros to their first playoff appearance since 1986.

“This team doesn’t have as much talent (as last season) but it does have more heart,” Coots said. “Last year, if things went wrong, we kind of rolled over and died.

“This team has already shown that it can come back and that’s the sign of a good group.”