Nordhoff Hitter Packs a Punch Off Court, Too

Jami Sawyer, a sophomore volleyball player at Nordhoff High, has taken her assignment as outside hitter to new lengths.

When a male friend challenged Sawyer to punch him as hard as she could last week, she did, in the ribs--spraining her right wrist in the process.

Sawyer was taken to a hospital emergency room for treatment. There, one of the nurses asked whether her friend would be checking in next. The friend was not seriously injured.

Sawyer missed Nordhoff’s three-game sweep of Carpinteria on Saturday in the state quarterfinals, but she had 14 kills Tuesday in a win over Oakhurst of Yosemite.

WEIGHING OPTIONS

NCAA Division I football teams are weighing John Freedman as a prospect.

Freedman, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior linebacker, is one of the area’s fastest and most talented defenders, and a spearhead for Camarillo, which will play host to Bell Gardens tonight in a Southern Section Division III semifinal. UCLA and Oregon State are among several West Coast schools interested in Freedman.

But there is a hitch: Both have told Freedman to beef up.

“UCLA said they want to get me up to 230,” Freedman said. “I eat everything. And I try to eat as much as I can. I should eat more.”

Freedman says he consistently runs a 4.7 40-yard dash. And he has put on weight in the past year. Last season, Freedman weighed 180 pounds.

“I put on 20 pounds pretty easily,” Freedman said. “Just working out. But I don’t get much of a chance to work out during the season. I will when the season is over.”

UPSET SPECIAL

The biggest surprise of the state cross-country championships occurred in the girls’ Division IV race when defending champion Maribella Aparicio of Fillmore finished no better than third.

Aparicio, who was seventh in last year’s Kinney national championships, had a five-second lead at the two-mile mark. But instead of blowing the race open in the final mile, she unexpectedly faded.

Karen Bockel of Nordhoff, a senior foreign-exchange student from Germany who won the race in 18 minutes 12 seconds, was as mystified as everyone else by Aparicio’s 18:48 time.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Bockel said. “She just didn’t have it. I passed her with 880 yards to go, and she did not respond at all.”

Aparicio, who had won the Southern Section Division IV title by a 79-second margin over Bockel, made no excuses.

She said she felt very tired in the last mile and “just had an oops race.”

FIRING BLANKS

Was Camarillo’s 19-0 mini-upset of previously undefeated Baldwin Park completely unforeseen? No, Camarillo Coach Carl Thompson said.

“I thought we had a good shot (at shutting them down),” he said. “We matched up pretty good with them. We’ve had a good defense against the run all season.”

Interestingly, even though Baldwin Park had not lost in its past 20 games before playing Camarillo, it was not the first time the Braves had been blanked this year. Baldwin Park and Rowland battled to a scoreless tie last month.

HAIR-LOSING EXPERIENCE

Canyon’s runners are very easy to spot during a race in because of the team’s bright green singlets, but they really stood out at the state meet because of their shaved heads.

Canyon Coach Dave DeLong told his runners last summer that whoever qualified for the state championships could shave DeLong’s head.

When the boys’ team placed third in the Southern Section Division II championships to qualify for the state meet, they all had their heads shaved as a show of unity.

DeLong kept his promise last week. Team members took turns shearing his hair at a school pep rally.

David Coulson and staff writers Steve Elling, Vince Kowalick and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.