Peaks and Valleys : After Descent, Mohney’s Canyons Baseball Team Begins Climb

College of the Canyons baseball Coach Len Mohney is on a hot seat.

Never mind his 131-60-1 record, his teams’ four Western State Conference championships and the 41-game winning streak from 1988-89 at Cougar Field, a.k.a. the Temple of Boom.

Like the poor souls who took over for Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes and John Wooden, Mohney has had to walk in the footsteps of a highly successful predecessor, Mike Gillespie.

In 16 years, Gillespie led Canyons to 11 conference titles and a 420-167 record, including junior college state championships in 1981, ’83 and ’86 and runner-up finishes in ’82 and ’85.

After the 1986 season in which Canyons posted a state-record 41 victories (against six losses), Gillespie left the Santa Clarita Valley for his alma mater, USC, which he has guided to a No. 2 national ranking this season.

Aside from persuading freshman pitching ace Darrin Beer to become a Trojan, Gillespie left the program in good shape and placed it squarely in the hands of Mohney, his friend and assistant of 10 years.

In Mohney’s first year, Canyons barely skipped a beat, winning 34 games and finishing fourth in the state.

The next season, the Cougars went 35-8 but were upset in the first round of regional playoffs. It marked the first time in eight years that Canyons did not make the trip to the state tournament.

The Cougars stayed home in ’89 and ’90 as well, and although no one is asking for Mohney’s head, the worst start in team history (0-8-1 this season) turned heads.

“People ask, ‘Why hasn’t Canyons won state since Mike left?’ ” Mohney said. “Obviously, it is not as easy to win and, obviously, I’m not Mike Gillespie. He is one of the best coaches in the nation.”

Mohney says it has become increasingly difficult to win a state championship because more teams are involved in the regionals that precede the four-team state tournament. Before 1985, the state’s eight conference champions proceeded directly to an eight-team, double-elimination state tournament.

Since Canyons routinely won its conference with Gillespie at the helm, its place in the state tournament was assured. Under Mohney, qualifying is becoming a rarity.

But Mohney will apologize for neither himself nor assistant coaches Andy Allensworth, Chris Zavatsky and Greg Bowlin nor his players.

“We think we’ve done a great job,” Mohney said. “We’ve averaged just under 30 wins per year. We were fourth (in state) in 1987 and we were the No. 1 seed in ’88 and lost (in regionals).

“We’ve done everything but win state. I think people out there still respect us. If we go to the final four this year or next people won’t think twice about it.”

Coach Tony Bloomfield of Harbor, which boasts one of the state’s most successful programs, said Canyons is only one tournament berth shy of once again attracting the San Fernando Valley region’s best players.

“Win one (state) playoff game and Lenny will have ‘em back,” Bloomfield said. “That is all it’ll take.”

In recent seasons, Mohney has lost top players to Pierce, Valley and Mission, schools that gave their baseball programs jump-starts by upgrading the head-coaching positions from part time to full time.

“They are getting competitive and Len is not getting the kids he used to get,” Bloomfield said, adding that players are increasingly choosing the improved programs at Mission, under Coach John Klitsner, and Pierce, under co-Coach Bob Lofrano. “Recruiting’s been real tough for Lenny. When Gillespie was there they all wanted to play for him.”

Still, 15 of Canyons’ 29 players hail from the San Fernando Valley. Eight others are from Saugus, Hart and Canyon highs, the only schools whose players Mohney is allowed to contact under junior college bylaws.

In contrast, schools in the Los Angeles Community College District, including Pierce, Valley, and Mission, can contact players from more than 70 schools from both the City and Southern sections.

Mohney’s saving grace has been the Canyons name, although the team’s aura of invincibility has faded a bit. Many high school players outside the Santa Clarita Valley still contact him first, thereby allowing him to recruit them. “That’s the one thing our tradition does,” Mohney said. “It gets the first contact, not that they’ll necessarily come, but they do make the first contact. Canyons speaks for itself.”

Once a player is lured to Canyons’ pastoral setting in Valencia, Mohney makes his pitch. “I sell the school, our program, its tradition, and the number of kids who go on to four-year schools (more than 30 have gone on to NCAA Division I programs since 1981),” he said.

“But if it is a 20-minute drive to here and 20 minutes to Pierce, it is a flip of the coin. Obviously, Mike Gillespie in his last six years was the Johnny Wooden of junior college baseball. He was going to get those kids for sure. That is not the case any more.

“It is hard to put it this way but I think if there’s a good kid at the west end of the Valley I think he’s going to go to Pierce. It is just something we’re not able to fight. Why drive 45 minutes when you’ve got a great program in your back yard?”

For a man who has known only success, the depths of an 0-8-1 start made February the cruelest month.

But Mohney, who at 36 bears a resemblance to a young Wilfred Brimley, remained upbeat and confident while bearing witness to 29 errors and a .229 team batting average.

His confidence was well-founded. Since Feb. 22, the Cougars have won 13 of 18 games and are 8-3 in the Western State Conference, 13-13-1 overall.

“I know I never gave in,” Mohney said. “If you don’t quit, they don’t quit. The credit goes to the kids. They would not (go) belly up. We didn’t think we were great, but we didn’t think we were 0-8-1.

“I told them to hold their head up when they were 0-8-1. I said if someone says College of the Canyons is down, you say: ‘We’ll see.’ ”

True to Thomas Fuller’s poem, it was darkest before the dawn.

On Feb. 21, Canyons lost a heartbreaker to Harbor, the defending state champion, which rallied from a 3-1 deficit for a 4-3 triumph. The Cougars loaded the bases with two out in the bottom of the ninth but could not deliver.

“For some reason we gained momentum from that loss,” Mohney said.

Pitcher Roland De La Maza credited it to the team chemistry developed the following weekend in Merced in the Blue Devil tournament, which Canyons won with a three-game sweep.

“We stayed together in the hotel and everybody learned to play together,” he said.

The team approach enabled Mohney to juggle the lineup without fear that the displaced would pout.

In search of the right combination, Mohney moved Jon Beauchemin from third base to left field and switched Bobby Corrales from shortstop to third base. Walter White became the starting shortstop and Robert Barrena took over at first base.

“They had to be prepared to play any spot any day, which is not a good atmosphere,” Mohney said. “Players are better when they know where they are going to be every day. We didn’t have the luxury of that.”

As the error totals decreased and the team batting average crept up to .282 (.309 in conference play), Mohney settled on a lineup of four sophomores and six freshmen, including Ty Powell and Pat DeBoer, who alternate in center field.

“We still know that we are not a great club,” Mohney said. “We think we are an average club getting better.”

Mohney’s coaching style is anything but average, however. It is the thinking man’s approach that he learned from Gillespie.

No detail goes unnoticed. The pitching coach calls all of the pitches, as well as the pitchouts. Prospective base stealers are kept close to the base with constant pickoff attempts. Sacrifices and squeeze bunts are common and swift players even steal home.

“That is my fun, to run a game,” Mohney said. “Some coaches make the lineup and sit back and watch. I like to steal home and squeeze bunt. That’s what I learned from Mike, try to use every little thing to win.”

While Mohney is quick to heed Gillespie, the USC coach does not consider himself to be Mohney’s mentor. “We were together so long we developed philosophies and styles together,” Gillespie said. “I was relatively young (33) in the profession when I started working with him so it was a matter of us feeding off each other’s thoughts and experimenting.”

“He deserves tremendous credit for much of what we did. He was always the guy with the greatest ability to motivate.”

The players certainly are not lacking for confidence this season.

“I know we’ve won this thing (conference),” De La Maza said. “We haven’t won it yet but we have a great shot.”

According to Beauchemin, Canyons’ rocky start does not preclude its state title dreams. “Our goal is state,” he said. “I know that sounds cocky, but that’s it.”