Harris, Wyatt Spent Season Making Points

This year, Shaneya Harris and Joe Wyatt, undoubtedly the highest-scoring basketball couple in the state--if not the country--will attend The Times’ all-star banquet as “significant others.”

Harris, star of the Kennedy High girls’ basketball team, and Wyatt, the standout on the school’s boys’ squad, became acquainted at a banquet last year honoring The Times’ All-Valley boys’ and girls’ selections and have been dating since.

Harris averaged 27.8 points this season and Wyatt 30.6. Harris is the girls’ Valley player of the year and Wyatt is a repeat pick on the boys’ All-Valley squad.

The two barely knew each other until they sat together at last year’s banquet, struck up a conversation and posed together for photos.

“It wasn’t really anything big,” Harris said. “But since then there was something there, and one of my friends, she really pulled it together.”

That friend is Keosha Tidwell, Harris’ Golden Cougar teammate and an All-Valley second-team selection.

NORTHWEST VALLEY CONFERENCE

BASEBALL

Who are these guys?

For the record, the Chatsworth High pitching staff, whose members had not thrown so much as a varsity pitch entering the season, allowed five runs in four games this week as the Chancellors won the Babe Herman tournament.

The offense, with only two returning starters among the eight regulars, scored 30 runs over the same span.

Chatsworth, expected to finish third in the West Valley League behind El Camino Real and Taft, has won 10 in a row to improve to 13-2, is 6-0 in league play and on top of the world.

“I think we know who we are,” said shortstop Bryan LaCour, who ranks among area leaders with 13 doubles. “But nobody else does.”

That is rapidly changing. LaCour and senior outfielder Mark Lopez have led the charge, but the rest of the untested crew also has stepped up, Coach Tom Meusborn said. Ask the coach if he is surprised at the team’s fast start and he grins.

“I tell the kids that we have no sophomores, no juniors and no seniors,” he said. “All are expected to contribute. I thought if we could mesh the old with the new, we’d be competitive. We’ve done that.”

Lopez, an All-City Section pick as a junior, was selected the tournament’s most valuable player. Lopez did just about everything: He batted .450, hit two home runs, had two stolen bases, played his typically solid defense in center field and even pitched the final 2 1/3 innings against Newbury Park in the final to seal an 8-3 victory.

“To be honest, at the beginning of the year, I didn’t see this coming,” Lopez said. “I figured we’d be in a bunch of 3-2 games, some 6-5 games. But we’ve been scoring runs and getting great pitching.

“We’re having a lot of fun.”

Taft outfielder DaShon Polk was an All-City 3-A Division selection as a defensive back last fall. Evidently, he can throw the bomb as well as cover it.

Polk started in left field earlier this week against Kennedy and showed off his high-powered right arm with a strong throw to third from deep left-center.

Unfortunately, Polk’s impressive toss was a bit too much. Not only did it reach third base on the fly, it reached the grandstand. The throw scattered several fans, including the mother of Kennedy first baseman Jeff Tagliaferri, who almost was pegged on the fly.

Taft’s Stacy Kleiner was an All-City selection last season as a catcher. So far this year the senior is making a bid as a valuable utility man. Kleiner has played second base, third base, catcher and left field as well as starting and relieving on the mound. He is batting .406.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Here’s a phrase that Camarillo outfielder George Lopez hasn’t heard much lately: Yer out!

Lopez, a returning All-Ventura County selection, has 10 hits in his last 10 at-bats, stretching over three games.

Lopez struck out in his first at-bat against Simi Valley on March 31, then had three singles. He followed with two singles, a double and a walk in the next game against Royal, then was four for four (two singles, two doubles) against Channel Islands on Tuesday.

Total numbers: seven singles, three doubles and a walk in 11 plate appearances. Whether Lopez’s feat is a record is uncertain. The Southern Section does not keep track of this particular statistic.

GOLDEN LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Quartz Hill outfielder Will Wallace, who hit one home run as a junior, has homered in the past three league games and has hit seven in all.

Wallace entered play this week with 21 runs batted in, which far outpaces the team-high mark of 13 posted last year by Phil Krueger. Wallace had nine RBIs in two league victories last week.

In 1992, no player in the league hit more than four homers. Wallace’s homer total is the highest since Kendial Armstrong hit seven for Quartz Hill in 1990.

Control deserted the Highland pitching staff in last week’s game against Antelope Valley. Five Highland pitchers combined to walk 17 batters and hit two others. Antelope Valley won in a rout, 20-3.

Eric Cole saw a few strikes, though. The Antelope Valley third baseman was three for five with a grand slam and drove in eight runs. No Antelope Valley player had more than seven RBIs entering the week.

Palmdale is alone in second place in league play at 3-1-1 behind Quartz Hill (5-0), impressive considering that three Falcon starters are sophomores: Shad Martin plays at third base, Chris Paxton at catcher and Justice Jones in the outfield.

“All my babies are going good,” Palmdale Coach Kent Bothwell said.

Martin had three hits and Paxton and Jones each added two in a 16-0 rout of Littlerock last week. Paxton, who started as a freshman, drove in five runs.

MISSION LEAGUE

VOLLEYBALL

The arrival of Harvard-Westlake and Loyola in the Mission League has strengthened an already formidable league and changed the balance of power.

“I would beg to differ with anyone (who believes) that any league is as tough as ours this year,” Notre Dame Coach Jim Hall said after a loss to Loyola last week.

Hall should know. His Knights made the playoff quarterfinals last year. This year they are 2-6, 2-4 in league play, partly because the Knights are an inexperienced team and have played without injured star Tom Stillwell.

But Notre Dame also has struggled, because of an unforgiving league schedule.

Crespi entered the season as the third-ranked team in Division II, having won two consecutive Mission League titles.

A third consecutive championship? Not so fast.

“There are no easy games this year,” Crespi Coach Kevin Slattum lamented two weeks ago.

Crespi is 7-2, 3-2 in league play. Its losses are to Loyola (7-3, 6-2) and Harvard-Westlake (8-0, 8-0), ranked seventh in Division I.

FOOTHILL LEAGUE

TRACK & FIELD

A desire to get a race in before a predicted rainstorm hit the Southland led to a unique double for Paul De La Cerda of Hart two weeks ago.

De La Cerda, a senior, figured the Pasadena Games at Occidental College would be rained out, so he ran in a heat of the men’s 1,500 meters in the Northridge Invitational at Cal State Northridge in the morning, placing sixth in 3 minutes 59.55 seconds.

He went to Occidental to watch his sister, Jessica, compete in the girls’ 800 in the evening, and when the heavy rains that had been forecast failed to materialize, he won the boys’ 1,600 in 4:18.04.

Both times were regional season bests for De La Cerda, whose brother, Peter, won the 5,000 for Adams (Colo.) State in last month’s NCAA Division II indoor championships.

“I was pretty satisfied with both races,” De La Cerda said. “It’s nice to know I can come back and run that fast.”

PACIFIC LEAGUE

TRACK & FIELD

Victories in major meets have been few and far between for Margarito Casillas of Hoover this year, but the 1992 state Division I cross-country champion still isn’t fretting over losses.

He knows the championship meets in May and June are the ones that matter most.

“We’re trying something different this year,” Casillas said at an Arcadia Invitational press conference this week. “I don’t know the exact reasons, but in the past, I’ve run great early, then kind of died out toward the end of the season.

“This year, I want to run my best at the end of the season, so I’m not worrying as much about winning every race right now.”

Casillas is not running poorly. He has lowered his personal bests to 1:58.91 in the 800 meters and to 4:19.42 in the 1,600, he just hasn’t won any big meets yet in his specialty, the 3,200 meters.

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Steve Elling, Vince Kowalick and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.