Nogales to Test Diamond Bar in Baseball

It will be showdown time in the Sierra League today when Diamond Bar and La Puente Nogales meet in baseball for the first time this season.

Diamond Bar has already earned recognition as the nation’s No. 2-ranked team in a recent Baseball America poll with a 10-1 record and was The Times’ top-ranked preseason Southern Section team. But, what about Nogales?

Nogales has won 12 of its first 13 games and carries a 10-game winning streak into this afternoon’s game at Diamond Bar.

All of which comes as no surprise to Coach John Romano, who expected his Nobles to be strong this season after finishing fourth in league play with a 16-10 record last year.

“I’m not surprised with our start because we’ve always had a good program here,” said Romano, in his 14th season at Nogales, where his record is 240-104-3. “This year, we have back the same team that almost made the playoffs a year ago.”

Nogales, which sent 12 players to organized baseball in the 1980s, among them Cecil Fielder of the Detroit Tigers, suffered its only defeat this season in the second round of the Chino tournament, losing to Elsinore. Since then, the Nobles have become one of the top teams in the Southern Section 5-A Division.

Three players have led Nogales during the winning streak-- pitcher Willie Topia, who has a 4-0 record and will pitch today against Diamond Bar; second baseman-pitcher Rowland Chavira, who is batting .320 and has a 2-0 pitching mark, and outfielder Edgar Solono, who has been a pleasant surprise with his .556 batting average--30 hits in 54 at-bats.

“Coaches have been calling Solono Lou Gehrig and he doesn’t know who (Gehrig was),” Romano said. “He has just been hitting everything, and he leads the team with six doubles.”

Romano says that even though Nogales does not match up with Diamond Bar, which has five NCAA Division I prospects in its lineup, the Nobles have a chance because of their ability to play well as a team.

“They (Diamond Bar) are so scary because they have so much ability and are playing at a level that it’s hard to imagine,” Romano said. “They scored 43 runs in three games last week, while we scored 13. They can just go out there and do it physically, while we have to do it together with the little things. Our backs are against the wall when we play them.”

For Nogales, playing against Diamond Bar is only the beginning of an uphill battle in going for its first Southern Section title.

Romano’s teams have not advanced further than the quarterfinals in the playoffs, even though they have had three 20-victory seasons.

“To me, winning a Southern Section title in baseball is the hardest thing to do in all of sports here,” Romano said. “It is so tough because, unlike the other sports, everyone is grouped together based on success. When a team wins the 5-A Division title here, that team is usually among the top three teams in the U.S.”

Defending 5-A champion Long Beach Millikan moved into the top spot in the Times’ Southern Section baseball poll. The Rams are 10-0-1.

Diamond Bar, No. 1 in the preseason, dropped to No. 3. Its only loss is to Huntington Beach in the Anaheim Loara tournament. Huntington Beach (11-1) is No. 2.

Nogales is making its poll debut at No. 7.

In the City, Granada Hills (9-1) moves from No. 3 to No. 1, replacing Granada Hills Kennedy.

Orange County’s bid to form its own CIF section was dealt a blow last week when the State Section Relations Committee voted, 6-2, against the proposed section.

The recommendation will be passed to the State Federated Council, which will vote on the proposal at its next meeting May 8-9. It seldom votes against the committee’s recommendation.

“The financial barrier alone should kill this thing,” Dave Rolph, superintendent for Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, told The Times last week.

Orange County is now part of the Southern Section, the largest of the state’s 10 sections.

For 11 years, Locke High consistently produced one of the top girls’ track and field teams in Southern California.

Under the leadership of Coach Jimmy Lee, the Saints dominated, with runners Choo Choo Knighten, Tesha Giddens, Rosetta Hunter and Jackie Foreman, in winning seven consecutive City titles from 1984-90.

The streak was broken last year, however, when Wilmington Banning outscored the Saints for the City Section championship, 57-54.

Lee decided to step down as coach before this season.

“In the 11 years I’ve been coaching here, I’ve been pretty successful,” Lee said. “I’m not burned out, but I am looking at things a little differently now since the streak is broken. This is just a good time for me to try new things.”

Lee is enrolled in graduate school at La Verne and looking ahead to a possible college coaching career.

He still teaches at Locke during the day and sometimes helps out with the team, but coaching at a new level is his goal.

“I want to be ready when the opportunity arises,” he said. “So, I have to get the paperwork behind me first.”

Times’ Prep Baseball Polls

CITY SECTION

No. School Div. Record LW 1. Granada Hills 4-A 9-1 3 2. Cleveland 4-A 7-2-1 2 3. University 4-A 9-2 5 4. Taft 4-A 7-3-1 NR 5. Kennedy 4-A 7-3 1 6. El Camino Real 4-A 6-4 NR 7. San Pedro 4-A 8-2 9 8. Monroe 4-A 5-2-1 6 9. Poly 4-A 6-3 NR 10. San Fernando 4-A 5-5 4

SOUTHERN SECTION

No. School Div. Record LW 1. Millikan 5-A 10-0-1 3 2. Huntington Beach 5-A 10-1 2 3. Diamond Bar 5-A 10-1 1 4. Mater Dei 5-A 9-1 6 5. El Segundo 3-A 7-1 9 6. Simi Valley 5-A 9-2 5 7. Nogales 5-A 12-1 NR 8. Capistrano Valley 4-A 9-2 NR 9. Channel Islands 5-A 8-1 15 10. Arlington 4-A 8-2 12 11. St. Paul 5-A 8-1 NR 12. Riverside Poly 5-A 8-3 7 13. Long Beach Wilson 5-A 9-3-1 NR 14. Edison 5-A 6-2 NR 15. Sierra Vista 2-A 8-0 NR