Bernstein Heats Up in League Play

Simi Valley’s Steve Bernstein, a senior transfer from Royal, was four for six with seven runs batted in last week and is batting .579 (22 for 38) in Marmonte League play. His on-base percentage is .842 and his slugging percentage is .947.

Bernstein’s average overall is a team-leading .468. He is followed by Brian Vasey (.461), Aaron Fischer (.453) and Kevin Nykoluk (.395.)

Vasey has scored 37 runs, four shy of Shaun Murphy’s 1985 school record. Vasey has 35 hits and Fischer has 34, but neither is likely to break the school record of 47 set by Murphy in 1985.

Hitting: Simi Valley has 60 doubles; the team record is 64 in 1986. . . .

Burroughs and Schurr combined for seven triples, five by Schurr, in a 14-13 eight-inning Burroughs loss last week. . . .

Antelope Valley hit five home runs in two games last week after hitting only two in the first 17 games. Freddie Edwards hit two against Ridgecrest Burroughs on Tuesday, and Jack Cox hit a pair against Canyon on Friday. . . .

Notre Dame’s Louie Tapia continues to make every hit count. Of his 23 hits, 10 are doubles, three are home runs and three are triples. His slugging percentage is .683. . . .

Entering play this week, five players from Kennedy were in double figures in RBIs and five others had either eight or nine. Sophomore Jeff Tagliaferri leads the team with 21. . . .

David Bourne of Kennedy has edged past older brother Troy in the race for the family batting title. David, a sophomore catcher is 16 for 47 (.340) and has struck out just five times in 58 plate appearances. Troy, a senior first baseman, is 19 for 62 (.306). . . .

Cleveland’s woes in the power department continue. The Cavaliers have managed just three triples all season and have a team slugging percentage of .358 and a batting average of .285. Three years ago, Cleveland outfielder Sean Burwell had three triples in one game . . . .

Chatsworth designated-hitter and shortstop Mitch Root has 37 hits and has scored 36 runs. He has struck out three times in 75 at-bats. Teammate Mike Muir, the Chancellors’ first baseman, was five for eight last week. He scored six runs, had two doubles, a triple, a home run and five RBIs. . . .

North Hollywood shortstop Mike Lewis (.357), the only senior on the team, hit for the cycle against Grant last week, but the feat took two games. He tripled in the Huskies’ 9-2 loss Tuesday and singled, doubled and homered in Friday’s 12-6 loss. . . .

Mike Rossiter of Burroughs, who has gained attention with his major-league-speed fastball, has been hitting the ball as well. The 6-foot-6, 200-pound senior homered in both games against Schurr last week to push his total to a team-high four. He is batting .400 (20 for 50) with a team-high 23 RBIs. As a pitcher, he is only 3-4 but has a 1.71 earned-run average with 89 strikeouts in 53 innings.

Pitching: Poly went into its two-game series with Sylmar last week with a team ERA of 1.63. The Spartans tagged three of the four pitchers used in the series for 17 earned runs, which elevated Poly’s ERA to 2.23. . . .

In nine Alpha League games, Montclair Prep’s staff has allowed just four earned runs, and the team has outscored its opponents, 102-9. The staff ERA in league play is 0.58 and the team batting average in league play is .435.

Baserunning: Kennedy players John Davis and Troy Bourne have not been thrown out stealing. Bourne is nine for nine and Davis is eight for eight. . . . James Yoder of Crescenta Valley has 24 stolen bases in 25 attempts.

Softball: Jamie Dean (.583) and Heather Medearis (.519) are leading the offense for Hart (17-4, 8-1). Medearis has 12 extra-base hits, 35 RBIs and 30 runs scored (30). . . .

Sylmar (15-0, 10-0) has won 29 consecutive Valley Pac-8 Conference games. Ruby Gonzalez has given up just one earned run in 80 innings (0.09 ERA) and averages 12.6 strikeouts a game.

Track: Westlake’s Jeannie Rothman ran a personal-best 10 minutes 50.48 seconds in the 3,200 meters in the Southern Section Masters Meet last year as a junior, but it took her nearly a year to improve on that mark. Rothman finished second in the Ventura County championships last month in 10:42.35 and, less than a week later, timed 10:36.89 in placing second in the Marmonte League finals at Camarillo. Agoura’s Deena Drossin won both races.

REGIONAL BASEBALL TOP 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 2 Simi Valley Marmonte 19-4 2 3 Thousand Oaks Marmonte 16-5-1 3 5 Sylmar East Valley 18-6 4 1 Poly East Valley 21-3 5 4 Channel Islands Marmonte 14-5 6 8 Chatsworth West Valley 16-6-1 7 7 Granada Hills North Valley 16-7-1 8 6 Rio Mesa Channel 16-6 9 NR Burbank Foothill 15-5 10 10 Montclair Prep Alpha 17-3

NR--Not ranked.