Escondido’s Youth Is Surprising, Winning at a Delightful Pace

One month into the 1992 high school softball season and there is but one undefeated team remaining in San Diego County.

That much, in itself, is perplexing to Escondido Coach Jeff Carlovsky, but the fact that the one unbeaten team is his has him downright mystified.

“Shoot, I don’t know how we’re doing it,” said Carlovsky, whose team is the defending 2-A champion. “We graduated everyone last year. I guess these kids this year are just too young to know any better.”

In winning its first 11 games, including six by shutout, Escondido has increased its winning streak to 29 games, second-best in San Diego Section history. The Cougars have a ways to go to match Madison’s 48-game streak from 1981-83, but earlier this season they knocked another Carlovsky-coached team--Orange Glen’s 1983-84 team that won 21 in a row--to the fifth spot in the record book.

Escondido’s regulars are mostly underclassmen, but the only two seniors are special players.

Marquessa Penrod (6-0 pitching record) and Kim Scales (.600 batting average) are both four-year starters.

“If you’re going to build a program around anybody, they’re two good ones to do it,” Carlovsky said.

Penrod is a pitcher/first baseman. Scales plays first and left field. The other regulars are freshman Carina Cox (second base), sophomores Beth Buder (shortstop) and Jennifer Chambers (pitcher), and juniors Debbie Perez (third), Michele Saltus (center field), Mindy Anderson (right field) and Kelly Fluharty (catcher).

“They’re young, but they’re all good, aggressive players,” Carlovsky said. “Those kinds of kids make you a good coach.”

Escondido’s streak began last year after a 4-2 start. Eighteen victories later, the Cougars won their first-ever section title in a girls’ team sport. Escondido began this season by winning its own Cougar Classic for the first time.

If you say so: San Dieguito’s baseball team lost, 6-3, to Orange Glen in eight innings on Friday, but the Mustangs had fun getting to the eighth.

San Dieguito trailed, 3-2, going into the bottom of the seventh, and Coach Jerry Clements had his first two batters that inning taking a strike. They both made outs.

As the third batter, Justin Liniak stepped to the plate, Clements called time to wax strategy with Liniak. “Look,” Clements said, “they probably think we’re taking a strike. I want you to just hit the first pitch out of the park.”

Clements then walked back to the coaches box and turned to his assistant: “He’s going to hit a home run.”

Ding dong. Liniak hit the first pitch over the right-center field fence.

College factory: Of the 35 boys in the senior class of La Jolla Country Day, 20% (seven) have been recruited to play one sport or another in college.

The two football players that stand out, of course, are running back Rashaan Salaam (Colorado) and kicker Eric Abrams (Stanford), but another, wide receiver/safety Larry Cheng, has been accepted at Harvard.

Soccer defenseman Danny Gabriel, the 1-A player of the year, is being wooed by Ivy League members Brown and Penn; Justin Mandlebaum, a soccer midfielder, is headed to California; Noah Katsell, a left-handed baseball pitcher, is also going to Cal; and Jason Boyle, a guard in basketball, is scheduled to take visits to three Division II schools, Humboldt State, Western Washington and Denver.

In addition, former LJCD player Damien Campbell will play baseball at Wyoming. Campbell was a starter in basketball at LJCD his freshman and sophomore years before his family moved to Whitefish, Montana.

Excuses, excuses: Attendance at The Times All-County Basketball Awards Ceremony on Sunday was a little light in the way of its Coaches of the Year recipients.

Vista’s Greg Lanthier, the boys’ coach, was in Minneapolis at the NCAA Final Four. He and his father have seats at mid-court, 11th row, $2,000 a pop.

“It’s the only thing in the world I would miss this ceremony for,” Lanthier said.

Poway’s Jay Trousdale, the girls’ coach, took in the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Los Angeles on Saturday and had planned to attend the ceremony Sunday morning. But at 3:30 a.m.--after the conversion to daylight savings time--he woke up in an unseemly condition that he blamed on Los Angeles Sports Arena hot dogs. He not only missed the awards ceremony, but the afternoon Final Four Championship game as well.