Season’s Dirty Work Is Over at Woodbridge

Stinky uniforms, energy pills and a 57-pound python on the loose. . . . That’s right. Just another typical day in the world of high school sports:

--Breathe easy, Irvine residents. That horrible stench you’ve been putting up with the last few weeks is gone. With its season now over, the Woodbridge baseball team finally washed its uniforms last week--something the Warriors (a.k.a. “Dirtbags”) haven’t done in nearly 20 games.

--La Quinta baseball Coach Dave Demarest on the difference in intensity between brothers Jim and C.J. Livernois:

“It’s like Jimmy puts five teaspoons of sugar on his cereal every morning and C.J. gets none,” Demarest says. “It’s like Jimmy’s on energy pills and C.J. it’s ‘Hello, wake up!’ It’s like too many lights on for Jimmy and not enough for C.J.”

It’s like, enough already.

--Some say the latest re-leaguing proposal that places Mater Dei and Brea-Olinda in the same league is ridiculous. But I don’t know. With the progression of gender equity, this could lead to that long-awaited Mater Dei boys’ vs. Brea girls’ hoops match-up.

--In a recent edition of the Dana Hills school newspaper, “The Paper,” Dolphin distance runner Adam Cota had this to say about track Coach Tim Butler:

“He forcefully motivates us with carefully organized workouts.”

Is that a compliment?

--So North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake soccer player Dwight Angelini was charged with felony assault and battery last week for kicking an opponent in the head and rendering him unconscious--an act that caused him to be suspended from school for two days.

Good to see school officials really cracking down on this violence issue.

--Regarding the incident, Harvard-Westlake headmaster Thomas Hudnut described Angelini as “a great kid. . . . a mild-mannered, mellow--yet serious about school--person. . . . (But) he’s a real tiger out on the soccer field.”

The tiger needs to be caged.

--Attention Western outfielder Matt Montgomery: After hearing you intentionally ran into a chain-link fence after making an out, a concerned reader faxed us with this:

“Barbie--I wonder if you could dig up the article in The Times about the basketball player from Europe (Slobodan Jankovic of Serbia) who was so incensed by fouling out of the game that he ran head-first into a concrete wall and broke his neck.

“It might not hurt to pass such info along to Matt Montgomery and anyone else who might want to take up this head-smashing thing.

“While a chain-link fence certainly does not compare to a concrete wall in elasticity, messing around with one’s neck and spine is little more than playing Russian Roulette with your future.”

Head-bangers, are you listening?

--Just wondering: How many readers support the formation of a separate Orange Section of the CIF? How many don’t give a hoot? Write us, call us, fax us.

--Mater Dei softball Coach Karyn Rice--whose team was upset by Ocean View, 2-1, Thursday--had this comment about Ocean View freshman Jennifer Hatcher’s two-run, game-winning homer off Monarch ace Jennifer Clark:

“I don’t mean anything bad by it, but I think that was a once-in-a-lifetime hit for her,” Rice said. “When someone is throwing that hard and you get a good piece of it, it’s going to go. If it was at someone, it would have been an out. But it was in the gap, and that’s luck. It’s great to be lucky.”

It’s also great that Hatcher has three more years of high school to prove luck had nothing to do with it.

--Stan Thomas, Southern Section commissioner, accepted an invitation to throw out the first pitch at Sportsmanship Day at Dodger Stadium last week. Next time, Stan, put a little more ooomph on that ball. Your pitch bounced before it reached the plate.

--From the quote bin:

“This is a case of Orange County insanity--affluent, suburban insanity.”

--Track & Field News senior editor Doug Speck, on Esperanza’s Carrie Caulkins and Corona del Mar’s Kelly Campbell participating in a flute recital and a club volleyball match on the same day they ran two races in the Southern Section track and field championships.

--Finally, one of the more bizarre tidbits in this column’s history: Gabrielle Saltzberg, a tennis player at Dana Hills, was waiting for science class to begin a few months ago when she witnessed an attack on a student by the school’s 10-foot, 57-pound Burmese python, “Julius Squeezer.”

Saltzberg was standing about five feet from classmate Linda Raymond, the snake’s caretaker, while Raymond was preparing the snake’s dinner--two large rabbits. Julius, draped around Raymond’s neck, lunged suddenly, enveloping Raymond’s hand in its mouth and sinking its fangs into her skin.

“It was starting to swallow her hand,” Saltzberg said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ It was scary. Her hand was gone inside its mouth.”

Two teachers rushed to Raymond’s aid and carefully pried the snake loose. According to a report in the school newspaper, Raymond--who says she blames herself for the incident--suffered about 30 puncture wounds and required minor surgery to repair damaged tendons.

Saltzberg said, despite the scare, she still thinks snakes are great. That’s good--because Julius Squeezer is on the loose.

The snake, presumed to have been stolen, has been missing since Feb. 2.