Hankins Drops Hammer on Upper Deck

He digs in at the plate and immediately the calls fly from the dugout: Come on, Hank .

Make that Hammerin’ Hank.

Sure, the handle originated with all-time home run leader Hank Aaron, but at the high school level it fits Ryan Hankins like a batting glove.

In Simi Valley’s four-game sweep to the championship of the Upper Deck tournament in Fullerton last week, Hankins indeed had a hammer. The senior third baseman was eight for 17 with two home runs and 13 runs batted in.

Hankins’ tournament performance wasn’t his only shining moment. Over the past seven games, he has 20 hits in 30 at-bats. For the season, he is batting .464 with team-high totals of seven home runs and 35 RBIs.

Moments after Simi Valley’s 7-6, come-from-behind victory over Irvine in nine innings in the championship game of the tournament, Hankins was selected the most valuable player. The 16-team tournament, regarded as the premier high school tournament in the nation, attracted top teams from Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Senior right-hander Bill Treadway became Simi Valley’s all-time winningest pitcher after posting two victories in the Upper Deck tournament. Treadway (4-0) raised his total to 21 wins in his career, breaking the record of 20 shared by brothers Steve and Scott Sharts. Steve graduated in 1982, Scott in 1988.

Who’s hot:

* David Lamb of Newbury Park continues on a torrid streak. Lamb went seven for 11, including a home run and a double, in the Babe Herman tournament last week. Lamb, who has signed to attend Pepperdine, has 13 hits in his last 28 at-bats--a 10-game stretch in which he has raised his average from .250 to .383.

* Clint Harris of Thousand Oaks remains the league’s only starter batting better than .500. Harris, a senior first baseman, pitcher and designated hitter, is batting .511 (23 for 45) with 23 RBIs. The Lancers also are hot, winning four in a row last week to take the championship of their own tournament.

* Sam Monroy of Channel Islands has 11 stolen bases in 11 attempts.

Who’s not:

* Westlake finished the week with a dismal .197 batting average. The Warriors have not had more than eight hits in a game, no one has hit a home run and only one starter is batting better than .300. Through last week, senior Steve Klein, a transfer from L.A. Baptist, led the team in RBIs with six.

“It’s pretty sad,” Coach Rich Herrera said. “We feel we’re better than that.”

On the mound, the Warriors are. A bright spot is junior right-hander Chris Flanagan, who has gone the distance in all six outings and is 4-2 with a 2.45 earned-run average. Sophomore right-hander Todd Singleton has loads of talent, Herrera said, but not much luck. Singleton is 0-6 with a 4.50 ERA, and the Warriors have not scored more than two runs in any of his starts.

“That poor guy should be at least 3-3,” Herrera said.

SOFTBALL

Simi Valley’s baseball team is the toast of the town, but there are 16 female schoolmates who also play on a diamond and are giving the boys a run for the glory. The Simi Valley softball team, ranked No. 2 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, is 15-0 and features a pitcher who has yet to allow an earned run.

Sara Griffin (12-0), a junior right-hander and a Times’ All-Ventura basketball player, allowed only 10 hits in four Righetti tournament games last week, guiding the Pioneers to their second tournament championship. Griffin recorded 43 strikeouts in 29 innings.

In 84 innings, Griffin has 135 strikeouts and has given up 21 hits--all singles--and five unearned runs.

It’s just business as usual when Griffin takes the circle. “She’s so naturally gifted that she doesn’t have to be hard on herself,” Coach Suzanne Manlet said. “She doesn’t mess around out there.”

TRACK & FIELD

Athletes from Agoura set three school records Saturday in the Arcadia Invitational. Junior Cathy Prater timed 44.45 seconds to finish second in the 300-meter low hurdles.

The girls’ distance medley relay team of junior Kay Nekota, junior Carrie Malnekoff, senior Kristie Camp and sophomore Amy Skieresz won that event with a nation-leading time of 11 minutes 57.02 seconds, and the boys’ distance medley team of seniors Emanuel Azizi, Rick Levey, Scott Borden and Ryan Wilson finished second in 10:16.89.

GOLDEN LEAGUE

BASEBALL

In the parlance of the Las Vegas denizens, Highland had to be considered the longest long shot in the Bishop Gorman tournament.

The Bulldogs entered the 32-team event last week with two wins and their beleaguered pitching staff had surrendered 17 walks and hit two batters in a blowout loss to Antelope Valley the previous week.

How long were the odds of victory? Off the board, no doubt. So guess who brought home the hardware? “It was just amazing,” Coach Mike Van Cheri said. “We’re still in shock. I have the trophy right here.”

Highland went 4-0 in the pool-play event to earn the title. Kennedy and Taft also went 4-0, but Highland was deemed the winner based on fewest runs allowed. The Highland staff, hardly the scourge of the High Desert in its previous outings, allowed five runs--three earned.

Ladd Stilson personified the team’s improbable run. Making a rare start on the mound against Servite in the fourth and decisive game of the tournament, he walked the first two batters on eight pitches. “I thought, ‘Uh oh, here we go again,’ ” Van Cheri said.

Yet Stilson rebounded, walking one and allowing two hits thereafter as Highland won, 6-1. . . .

At the other end of the tournament spectrum was league co-favorite Quartz Hill, which was cruising before getting blasted in the Thousand Oaks tournament last week. The Rebels, who entered the event 7-2 and 5-0 in league play, lost three of four games.

Quartz Hill fell to Dos Pueblos, Hart and Santa Barbara, and defeated Moorpark. Coach Mike Nielson hopes it serves as a wake-up call. “It was good for us,” he said. “This should help us keep everything in perspective.”

NORTHWEST VALLEY CONFERENCE

BASEBALL

Rick Nadeau has hit so many home runs lately that folks are having a hard time keeping track of them all.

Nadeau whacked homers in the first three games of the Bishop Gorman tournament last week in Las Vegas. It was believed that he had hit homers in eight consecutive games, but after Coach Manny Alvarado rechecked the official team score book upon returning home, he learned the streak was at seven.

Nadeau’s streak ended Saturday, though he did triple in the game.

“He was pressing, trying to hit a homer,” Alvarado said. “You could tell it was on his mind.”

In five games last week, Nadeau was eight for 16 with four homers and 11 RBIs.

As heady as his home-run statistics are, consider this: Nadeau had struck out once in 56 plate appearances entering the week.

Three of Nadeau’s Kennedy mates also set Las Vegas afire. In five games last week, including four in the Bishop Gorman tournament, catcher David Bourne was 10 for 16 with two homers and eight RBIs; first baseman Jeff Tagliaferri was eight for 15 with three homers and six RBIs, and shortstop John Toven was nine for 18 with a homer and seven RBIs. . . .

Will the real Warren Stewart please stand up?

Stewart, a right-hander from Taft, allowed eight first-inning runs to East Salt Lake City in a Bishop Gorman tournament game last weekend. Inexplicably, Stewart then struck out nine of the next 10 batters.

“It was schizophrenia or something,” Coach Rich McKeon cracked.

Taft rallied to win, 10-8, and finished 4-0 in the event. Stacy Kleiner was eight for 11 in the four games. . . .

Chatsworth outfielder Mark Lopez is eating better these days, and for good reason. “Home cooking,” he said.

Three years ago, Lopez’s parents moved to Virginia from Chatsworth to open a restaurant. Lopez opted to remain behind and lived with an older sister. Last summer, his folks sold the restaurant and returned to the Valley.

Lopez has fattened up in a hurry--statistically, that is. Lopez, a returning All-City Section outfielder, is 25 for 56 (.446) entering the week and has scored 25 runs. He had team-high marks in homers (three) and RBIs (21). . . .

Coach Mike Maio can’t promise that his El Camino Real club--the region’s top-ranked City Section team--won’t have any letdowns against lesser opponents.

But he will issue an unlimited, million-mile guarantee that this team will not slip into autopilot. Not if he has anything to say about it.

“We don’t have cruise control on this car,” said Maio, whose team reached double figures in runs in nine of 11 games entering the week. “This is an old-fashioned Model T. We’ll keep plugging along, grinding out the miles.”

VALLEY PAC-8 CONFERENCE

BASEBALL

Sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned. Sometimes they go much better.

Such was the case last week for Van Nuys in a conference game against Poly.

With the Wolves trailing, 6-2, in the fifth inning, Coach Bill Gordon went to the mound to remove starter Jesus Bolivar.

Gordon intended to move third baseman Victor Gonzalez to the mound, and insert reserve Jose Casco at third. But it didn’t quite work out that way. Casco, who was warming up in the bullpen when he was called, had other ideas.

“I waved him in and he came running out to the mound,” Gordon said. “He stuck his hand out for the ball and I looked around like he was crazy. Then I said, ‘Why not,’ and I handed him the ball.”

Casco, an off- off- speed pitcher who has been limited to little more than keeping the score book, took his warm-up pitches while Poly batters licked their chops.

But, Casco, in his first varsity appearance, retired the first five batters he faced. And when Van Nuys rallied to take an 8-6 lead, Casco emerged the winner.

“He’s the only kid that has won a league game,” Gordon said. “He’s my ace.”

FOOTHILL LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Longtime Hart Coach Bud Murray has been involved in his share of strange baseball situations, but none were more odd than what he and the Indians faced in the Thousand Oaks tournament last week.

Hart was dominant while going undefeated during the tournament’s first three rounds. The Indians outscored the opposition, 31-5, en route to the championship game.

Or so they thought.

The brackets were designed so that more than two teams might be undefeated before the final. Sure enough, Dos Pueblos, Hart and Thousand Oaks all were 3-0.

Much to Murray’s surprise, he was informed that Hart would play in the third-place game because its pitchers had the least strikeouts in the tournament.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Murray said. “The first thing I said was, ‘You have to be kidding.’ I have never heard of a tiebreaker like that.

“Our guys don’t have a lot of strikeouts so we don’t play in the final? We had quite a go-around for about 15 minutes.”

Murray made his point. Hart was allowed to play Thousand Oaks for the championship, but the Lancers made their point as well, defeating the Indians, 8-7.

TRACK & FIELD

Hart distance coach Gene Blankenship was busy crunching numbers Saturday night after watching sophomore Brett Strahan (4:13.90), senior Paul De La Cerda (4:15.57) and junior Gavin Klinger (4:16.7) run personal-best times in the 1,600 meters in the Arcadia Invitational.

Add senior Keith Grossman (4:22.4) to that trio and you have the makings of a superb four-mile relay team, one which Blankenship figures has an outside shot at breaking the national high school record of 17:06.6--an average of 4:16.7 per mile--in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on Friday. “It’s going to be hard because we’re not going to have (a lot of competition to push us),” Blankenship said.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, Paige A. Leech, John Ortega and Jason H. Reid contributed to this notebook.

Regional Baseball

Top 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Lst. Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Simi Valley Marmonte 16-1 2 2 Crespi Mission 13-2 3 3 El Camino Real West Valley 11-1 4 9 Kennedy North Valley 14-2 5 5 Buena Channel 10-3 6 7 Chatsworth West Valley 13-3 7 4 Notre Dame Mission 12-3 8 6 Taft West Valley 13-3 9 NR Palmdale Golden 12-3-1 10 NR Montclair Prep Freelance 12-2

NR--Not ranked.