Berger’s Catch a Big-League Play to Stroh

Call Granada Hills High baseball Coach Darryl Stroh the “Say Nay Kid.”

Soon after he watched Highlander right fielder Scott Berger make a spectacular catch to rob Taft of a run in a Northwest Valley Conference game Wednesday, Stroh planted himself in a director’s chair and began a discourse on defense.

The subject: great and not-so-great plays of television lore.

“I watch all those baseball highlight films on TV,” Stroh said. “Some of those plays aren’t that good.”

Stroh was naming names--specifically that of Willie Mays, whose catch of Vic Wertz’s line drive in the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds is considered legendary.

“That one Willie Mays made? Not that good,” Stroh said. “He went back and caught it over the shoulder. Big deal.

“This one, (Berger) was in the air, falling down and backhanding the thing. Willie Mays had all the room in the world and Berger was running right at the fence.

“Sometimes, high school kids make great plays, but we never see them because there are no cameras.”

Picture this: Berger’s ballet act helped the Highlanders defeat Taft, 4-0, ending the Toreadors’ nine-game winning streak and handing them their first loss in conference play.

CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR

Wanted: freebies.

Crespi lost, 3-2, to Millikan on Saturday night in the final of the El Segundo tournament. All things considered, Crespi fared well against Millikan, the state’s top-ranked team and the defending Southern Section 5-A Division champion.

Junior right-hander Jorvic Salazar, Crespi’s No. 4 starter, went the distance and was rock steady after giving up two runs in the first inning.

Crespi (10-5) failed to cash in a few key scoring opportunities, however, and lost for the second game in a row. The Celts have been plagued by their inability to generate the big hit or force the defense into making a mistake.

“The trouble is that we’re not very fast through the lineup,” Crespi Coach Scott Muckey said. “The guys who are fast get on base and have had guys ahead of them.”

That limits Muckey’s ability to run offensive plays, which in turn has cut down the team scoring output.

“We haven’t gotten many unearned runs,” Muckey said. “If we don’t hit ‘em in, nothing happens.”

The ship might have righted itself: Crespi hammered Alemany, the Mission League leader, 16-1, Wednesday.

LUCK OF THE DRAW

Justin Van Fleet of Verdugo Hills began the season as the favorite for this year’s City Section title in the pole vault, but after suffering a broken bone in his right foot during warm-ups for the Pasadena Games on March 28, he will need some luck just to qualify for the City finals May 28.

Van Fleet has been sporting a cast on his right foot since sustaining the injury, and it is not expected to be removed until May 5, two days before the Northern Conference finals.

Verdugo Hills Coach Fred Koegler said Van Fleet will not be able to vault in the conference meet, but he is hopeful that the runner-up in last year’s City meet can get into the City quarterfinals May 15 as an alternate.

Normally, an athlete must place among the top five in an event in the conference meet to advance to the City preliminaries, but each team is allowed to enter one alternate in the preliminaries.

If Van Fleet competes in the preliminaries, he must place among the top 16 to advance to the semifinals a week later. The top eight from that meet qualify for the finals.

“It’s too bad he got injured,” Koegler said. “He started the season with a personal record (14 feet), and he was clearing 14 feet in practice all week before the Pasadena Games.”

BREAKTHROUGH RACE

Jeff Wilson of Newbury Park has considered himself a miler since he was a sophomore, yet many track experts figured he should be concentrating on the 3,200 meters. After all, he had won the state Division III cross-country title in 1990 and ’91 and placed second in the Kinney national cross-country championships last December.

Wilson removed some of the doubts at the Arcadia Invitational last Saturday when he finished second in the 1,600 in a personal best of 4 minutes 12.44 seconds.

His previous best was 4:20.39, set last year.

“It was great to finally run that fast,” said Wilson, who has made an oral commitment to Brigham Young. “I just hope I can do it again. . . . I’ve never had a real successful track season before. That race gives me a push in the right direction.”

Merced junior Brian Wilkinson won the 1,600 in 4:11.17, the second-fastest high school time in the nation this year. Wilson’s time is the third fastest.

QUICK LEARNERS

Many coaches talk about rebuilding, but for Camp Kilpatrick boys’ volleyball Coach Tom Barr, it is more like reconstructive surgery.

“Most of my players come to camp not knowing a volleyball from a strawberry,” Barr said.

Camp Kilpatrick, based in Malibu, is a Los Angeles County school for juvenile offenders, who seldom stay for more than a year. That makes for some unusual coaching problems. Barr starts each season with virtually a new team and occasionally loses a player during the season.

That happened two weeks ago when the Mustangs’ top player, outside hitter Souriyahn Passomsouk gained his release from the school. But Camp Kilpatrick continued its push for the Southern Section 2-A Division playoffs by defeating Village Christian last Friday in a five-game match.

The Mustangs trailed, 2-1, in games and were down, 13-9, in the fourth game before rallying to win 15-13. They closed out the match with a 15-11 win in the fifth game. Kenneth Johnson sparked the comeback, finishing with 25 kills in the match.

“It’s like you are developing a four-year program in 10 weeks,” Barr said. “We just try to get as fundamental as possible.”

Barr concentrates on developing individual skills, particularly passing. He also takes his team to Pepperdine on occasion to watch the Waves’ nationally ranked men’s volleyball squad perform.

“I want them to see a higher level of play, so they can get a feel for how volleyball is supposed to be played,” Barr said.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

After firing a one-hit shutout against Ventura on Wednesday in the championship game of the Thousand Oaks baseball tournament, Channel Islands pitcher Angel Aragon can laugh about the sprained right ankle that sidelined him for the previous six days.

“I was out playing catch with my little nephew,” Aragon said. “We were throwing a football around and he told me to go out for a pass.”

Aragon, who is 7-1 with a 1.29 earned-run average and a .400 batting average, twisted the ankle trying to track down his nephew’s pass. But the Raiders won three games without him to advance to the title game.

Ventura Coach Dan Smith gave the Channel Islands pitcher the most help by taping Aragon’s ankle before the final.

Smith then spent the game needling Aragon with lines like: “Angel, is the tape too tight? Is that ankle swelling up yet?”

Aragon’s teammates have come to expect a lot from the senior right-hander, but they came away even more impressed with Aragon’s effort in the final.

“For having been out for a few days, it was great,” Channel Islands catcher Jose Gastelum said. “He didn’t throw at all when he was out.”

SUPER SUB

Ysidro Alfaro was expecting to play just a few innings here and there as the Channel Islands baseball team competed this week in the Thousand Oaks baseball tournament.

But regular second baseman Sam Monroy received 20 stitches in his right knee to close a spike wound suffered against Camarillo last week and Alfaro went from understudy to star.

Alfaro, only a sophomore, was seven for 10 with eight runs batted in in four games, earning all-tournament honors and helping spark the Raiders to the championship.

“I just went in and did my job,” Alfaro said. “I really feel confident swinging the bat now.”

That confidence was not lost on Ventura pitcher Eric Rafter with two out in the fifth inning of the championship game.

Alfaro already had burned the Cougars with a two-out, two-run single in the first and Rafter pitched around Alfaro, walking him on four pitches with Chris Fullmer on second base.

It did not matter that Javier Rios, one of the area’s top power hitters with five home runs, was on deck. Rafter wanted no part of Alfaro.

“That felt good,” Alfaro said of the sudden respect. “I liked that.”

David Coulson, Vince Kowalick and staff writers Steve Elling, Paige A. Leech, John Ortega and T.C. Porter contributed to this notebook.