Jensen Beats Young to Top of Hits Chart

Highland Hall’s Jakob Jensen won his race with Rio Mesa’s Dmitri Young for the state high school record in career hits, finishing his four-year varsity career with 168 to Young’s 159.

Jensen and Young surpassed the record of 147 held by Redondo’s Scott Davison on the same day, but Young’s four-for-15 slide toward the end of the season enabled Jensen to pull away.

Jensen also set Southern Section records with 153 career runs batted in and 42 doubles. He exceeded Davison’s RBI record of 147 and surpassed the doubles record of 36 set by Mammoth’s Danny Paranick. Young drove in 127 runs, which ranks fifth in Southern Section history.

Jensen finished with 141 career runs, one shy of the Southern Section record shared by Montclair Prep’s Torey Lovullo and California School for the Deaf’s Mike Garcia. Young scored 137 runs, the fourth-best total in the Southern Section.

Young hit 29 career home runs, third all-time behind Simi Valley’s Scott Sharts (32) and St. Bernard’s Dan Melendez (31). Jensen is fourth in triples (11) and sixth in stolen bases (91).

Jensen batted .676 this season (50 for 74) and finished with a .523 career average. Young, who batted .425 this season, had a .488 career average.

Last but not least: Sammy Vaquera, Crescenta Valley’s No. 9 hitter, was four for five in the Falcons’ two playoff games.

In a 13-5 win over Fontana in the first round, the senior left fielder was three for three and drove in three runs. In a 12-7 loss to Baldwin Park in the second round, Vaquera was one for two, walked and drove in two runs.

Despite Vaquera’s position in the batting order, Coach Tony Zarrillo said that Vaquera was far from the weak link in hitting ability.

“We never wanted the No. 9 hitter to be the sure out,” Zarrillo said of Vaquera, who batted .333. “We want a kid out there who is going to stir things up as actively as possible and get on base on a fairly consistent basis. He doesn’t get as many at-bats as the leadoff batter, but he’s done a great job.”

No. 1 statistic: Harvard won its first Southern Section title in volleyball, defeating Royal in five games in the 3-A Division final.

However, Harvard has no match statistics because the team’s scorekeeper did not show up for Saturday’s match.

“He called in sick and left a message at the campus, but we didn’t get it because it was on the weekend,” Harvard Coach Mark Zalin said.

“There were so many things going on and trying to concentrate on stopping Royal that we didn’t have time to deal with it. It really isn’t important. We just went out there to win. That was the most important statistic of all.”

One-sided victory: The winner in all five Royal-Harvard volleyball games played on the north side of the court at Cerritos College.

“When we won the coin flip at the beginning of the fifth game, I didn’t care about getting the serve,” Zalin said. “I just wanted that side of the court.”

The agony of victory: Harvard volleyball players Brian Baise and Steve Keck were in no condition to do much celebrating Saturday. Each player sustained a twisted ankle and was rushed to the hospital after the match. The injuries were diagnosed as severe sprains.

“It’s a good thing that we didn’t play six games,” Zalin said. “It was a long match and we couldn’t have lasted any longer.”

No regrets: The Antelope Valley baseball team lost to visiting La Mirada, 11-6, in a Southern Section 3-A Division quarterfinal last week, but first-year Coach Ed t’Sas took great satisfaction in the fact that his team got that far.

“We would like to have gone to Anaheim Stadium (site of the 3-A title game), but it’s hard to feel bad about what this team accomplished this season,” t’Sas said. “It’s easy to get greedy after you win a couple of playoff games, but overall, these kids accomplished a lot. They won the Golden League title and no one can take that away from them.”

About 400 attended Friday’s game. “Interest seems to be picking up,” t’Sas said. “And I’m counting on it to continue. I just hope people don’t expect us to get this far every year. . . . But maybe they should.”

Musical notes: A mixture of rap and pop songs was played before the first inning of the La Mirada-Antelope Valley game, but when Antelope pitcher Rick Nickols took the mound, the music shifted to rock ‘n’ roll with The Troggs’ 1966 hit, “Wild Thing.”

Nickols, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound senior who goes by that moniker, seemed to feed off the excitement created by the song for the first part of the game, retiring eight of the first nine batters he faced.

Things got a little wild for Nickols after that, however, as La Mirada scored a pair of runs with two out in the third inning on a walk, a double and a single, and added two more in the fourth on a single, a triple and a bunt that Nickols mishandled for an error.

Close, but not quite: Several Thousand Oaks High athletes barely missed qualifying for the state track and field meet with sixth-place efforts in the Southern Section Masters meet. The top five finishers in each event advanced.

Sprinter Jack Bellamy finished in 10.88 seconds and Pius X’s Gentry Bradley was fifth in 10.82. In the 200, Tim Martin of San Clemente outleaned Bellamy for fifth, 21.67 to 21.69.

Erik Spayde recorded personal bests in the 1,600 and 3,200 but could place no higher than sixth in either race. Spayde was nipped at the finish by Garden Grove’s Mike Berstein for the final qualifying berth in the 1,600. Berstein ran 4:12.87 and Spayde clocked 4:12.91. Spayde (9:14.82) finished three steps behind Billy Dixon of Hart (9:13.99) in the 3,200.

The Lancer boys’ 1,600 relay team finished sixth, in 3:22.53. Pasadena Muir grabbed the last qualifying berth in 3:21.71.

Renee Sprowl finished sixth in the girls’ triple jump at 36 feet 4 1/2 inches, missing by 10 1/2 inches.

Mike Glaze and staff writers Kirby Lee, John Ortega and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.