Swinging True : Confident Simi Valley Continues to Pummel Opponents With a Startling Barrage of Runs

For now, the Simi Valley High baseball team is beating teams into concession. Submission? Not yet, but stay tuned.

“They are a very talented team, but there is no need to be intimidated by them,” Agoura Coach Bart Morefield said. “They’re just normal kids. They have their good days and their bad days.”

Bad days? When?

The Pioneers are ranked No. 1 in Southern Section Division I, and, according to USA Today, are second in the nation behind Westminster Christian of Miami.

Simi Valley (13-1) will face Irvine (9-5) tonight at 7 in the championship game of the Upper Deck tournament at Cal State Fullerton. Irvine posted a 6-3 win over Westminster Christian (16-3) in Wednesday’s other semifinal.

A win tonight could make Simi Valley the nation’s top-ranked team. Proof of the Pioneers’ power is in the poundings.

Simi Valley has won nine games in a row by a combined score of 142-28. En route to tonight’s final, the Pioneers have defeated Okmulgee (Okla.), 21-1, Mater Dei, 13-4, and Carmichael (Calif.) Jesuit, 13-7.

Marmonte League opponents have fallen equally as hard. The scores? Newbury Park (13-1), Channel Islands (14-5), Westlake (15-0), Thousand Oaks (16-1), Channel Islands (20-3) and Agoura (17-6).

The Simi Valley lineup includes eight returning starters, including senior third baseman Ryan Hankins, who has hit seven home runs.

The pitching staff of returning right-handers Trevor Leppard (4-1), Bill Scheffels (6-0) and Bill Treadway (3-0) is the deepest in Coach Mike Scyphers’ 15-year tenure.

The team rivals Simi Valley’s 1986 team that included pitcher Scott Radinsky, now with the Chicago White Sox, and catcher Tim Laker, with the Montreal Expos, and spent most of the season ranked No. 1 in the nation. But Scyphers stops short of making any comparisons.

The Pioneers’ batting average is .411. They have 63 extra-base hits, including 16 home runs, and are averaging 13.5 runs a game.

League coaches overwhelmingly picked Simi Valley to breeze to its ninth title under Scyphers. But this?

“I didn’t think the scores would be this bad,” senior catcher Kevin Nykoluk said. “Are other teams intimidated? I couldn’t tell you. They might be.”

Royal is the only league opponent that hasn’t played Simi Valley. Coach Dan Maye already has decided--by observing what other league coaches have learned the hard way--that throwing his No. 1 starter against Simi Valley is as good as throwing him to the dogs.

Better to save the ace for the real race: the battle for second.

“Other than Simi Valley, our league is not very strong from top to bottom,” Maye said. “So, everybody is fighting for second place and saving their best pitcher for the games against other teams.”

Westlake Coach Rich Herrera concurred, and he has let Scyphers in on his plan.

“Sure, why not?” Herrera said. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve discussed it with Mike. If they’re supposed to walk away with it, let’s let them walk away with it. Everybody’s expecting them to win, so everyone (else) is fighting for second.”

Camarillo Coach Jack Willard said he might throw his entire staff against Simi Valley in their return meeting and hope for the best.

“I’ve seen what they can do to one guy,” Willard said. “If you leave one guy out there too long, he’s going to get killed. My approach to Simi is to throw an assortment of guys at them.”

All this talk of national rankings and white-flag raising might create problems for a coach trying to keep his players’ feet on the ground.

Scyphers snapped at his players for their lackadaisical dugout behavior after the team held only a 2-1 lead over Agoura after four innings. The players responded with a pair of seven-run innings.

Other than that, Scyphers reports no problems.

“We can look at it two ways,” he said. “We can get complacent and not stay on top of our game, or we can stay focused.

“Our goal is to win the league championship. Whatever (other coaches) do, I have no control over. If they want to throw their No. 2s against us, that’s their business. If they burn their No. 1 against us, then they have to come back with their No. 2 or No. 3 against somebody else and, maybe, they’ll lose two games in one week.”

Still, a nail biter probably wouldn’t hurt. Simi Valley’s lone defeat was to Long Beach Millikan, 3-0, in the championship of the El Segundo tournament.

If the Pioneers are to win their first Southern Section baseball title, it might mean defeating Millikan, which defeated Simi Valley in last season’s semifinals.

Can the Pioneers win a close game?

“We’ve got the pitching to compete in any kind of game,” Leppard said.