AMERICAN LEGION BASEBALL NOTEBOOK : Conejo Lost Sleep as Well as Its Opener

Perhaps Conejo rolled over so easily in its first-round game in the state American Legion baseball tournament--a 6-2 loss to eventual champion Escondido--because it couldn’t roll over the night before.

Conditions in the Yountville barracks, at a state veterans’ hospital and retirement facility, left something to be desired.

Such as sleep.

When the players arrived Friday, it didn’t take them long to learn that the accommodations were hardly of five-star caliber.

Pitcher Tony Siegel claimed to have found blood stains on his pillow. Pitcher-first baseman Adam West refused to crawl between the sheets and slept on top of the bunk. Despite the cold temperatures at night, each bunk was equipped with one loosely weaved blanket.

“We were wondering why we saw another team at the (Oakland) airport and they all had sleeping bags with them,” pitcher Nick Brown said.

On Saturday night, Conejo found a solution--don’t sleep at all. Many players spent much of the first night clowning around in the team barracks.

Said Conejo Coach Craig Sturges before Sunday morning’s 5-4 victory over El Segundo: “This is either going to be our greatest game all season or the absolute worst. The guys blew off a lot of steam last night and nobody got much sleep. I finally had to put an end to it when the trash-can lids started flying.”

Mistakes aplenty: While hitting eventually became contagious, so did bad defensive play, which eventually cost Conejo (40-6) a berth in the Northwest regional, which starts next Wednesday in Sheridan, Wyo.

The five Conejo pitchers used in the four state tournament games allowed only six earned runs in 35 innings, but they gave up 20 runs overall thanks to 16 Conejo errors.

Add statistics: Conejo shortstop-catcher Brian Sturges will be eating sweet potatoes for months.

Tournament officials rewarded each player who hit a home run with a two-liter bottle of cola and a 40-pound sack of sweet potatoes. Sturges, who was six for 15 in the tournament, hit three home runs and narrowly missed two others. He drove in seven runs and had 16 total bases in four games.

“I’m real comfortable at the plate right now,” he said after hitting two homers against El Segundo. “The ball looks as big as a watermelon right now. . . . or a sweet potato.”

In fact, Sturges hit three home runs before any other player in the six-team tournament had hit one.

Leadoff batter Ryan Kritscher finished six for 14, and outfielder Jeff Olin, who will be a senior at Thousand Oaks High in the fall, was four for 13.

Yountville recap: Escondido, which defeated Conejo in a first-round game last Saturday, won the state title Tuesday with a 9-6 win over Union City.

Escondido finished the tournament with a 4-0 record and earned a berth in the Southwest regional, which begins next week in Lodi, Calif. Union City will play in the Northwest regional.

Escondido, coached by Tim Chatton, placed second to Woodland Hills West last summer. To help supply moral support for his team, Chatton, a dentist, paid for his office staff to attend the tournament.

For the second consecutive summer, Escondido’s Brian Kooiman was selected the tournament’s most valuable player. In four games, Kooiman hit a tournament-high four home runs, drove in eight runs and earned a victory as a pitcher.

And I’ll prove it: As Conejo outfielder Trent Martin prepared to step in for his second at-bat in Sunday’s 5-4 win over El Segundo, Craig Sturges walked from his station in the first-base coaching box to the on-deck circle where Martin was swinging a bat.

Said Sturges: “Trent, look me straight in the eye and repeat after me. Say, ‘I want to be a stud.’ ”

Replied Martin: “I am a stud.”

Martin’s solo homer to left in the seventh, his second of the season, proved to be the margin of victory.

The smell of defeat: After Conejo, one of the pre-tournament favorites, lost its opener to Escondido, the local retirees who attended the games let the team know what they thought of its lackluster performance.

After Conejo won the Area 6 title, Woodland Hills West Coach Don Hornback warned the Conejo players that the crowd at Yountville was tough--beer and wine are served in the stands. Still, the players were unprepared for the jeers they received.

“One old guy came up afterward and said, ‘You guys stiiiink,’ ” said Conejo assistant Mike Herman, laughing. “ ‘You guys are supposed to be good, but you really stiiiink.’ ”

Herman braced for more.

“Another guy came up later and said, ‘Hey, you guys are no good at all. You were supposed to be good. I lost money on you guys.’ ”

Ejection amplification: Three Sepulveda players--not four, as was originally reported--were ejected during the team’s season-ending, 6-5 loss to Westchester in the Area 6 playoffs two weeks ago.

Although pitcher Kevin Grant joined three Sepulveda players outside the dugout and behind the backstop screen in the bottom of the 10th inning, he, unlike the other three who were ejected for allegedly using profanity, was there by choice.

Sepulveda, which won the District 20 championship in its first year of existence this summer, had two players tossed for arguing an out call at third base in the 10th inning. Another player was ejected for similar language in the early innings.

“I just couldn’t be in (the dugout) anymore,” said Grant, who hopes to play at College of the Canyons next spring. “I was trying to pitch my game, and guys are getting thrown out.

“And it’s not like it was a new thing for us. We’d played one game already under those rules. Some good (batters) got kicked out.

“I just didn’t want to be a part of that. It was embarrassing. It was totally uncalled for.”

Grant, a right-hander and a 1990 graduate of Montclair Prep, took the loss when Sepulveda failed to score in the bottom of the 10th. Grant (3-3) went the distance and allowed just two earned runs.