Simi Valley Trio Rewrites Record Book

Kevin Nykoluk swings a hot bat for Simi Valley.

Nykoluk, a senior catcher, has hit four home runs in the Southern Section Division I playoffs, including two in an 8-6 quarterfinal victory over Diamond Bar, and has 10 this season.

Nykoluk did not homer in the Pioneers’ 10-0 semifinal victory over Notre Dame. However, his two-run triple in the second inning short-hopped the left-field wall at spacious Blair Field in Long Beach.

“It all hasn’t really sunk in yet,” a beaming Nykoluk said during postgame celebration. “Talk to me tomorrow.”

Even Coach Mike Scyphers is a bit surprised by his team’s firepower, especially the longball abilities of Nykoluk, Britten Pond and Ryan Hankins. Nykoluk, Scyphers noted, is a “50-50-50 player,” having totaled 50 hits, 51 runs and 50 runs batted in to go with a .476 batting average.

Pond might join Nykoluk during tonight’s championship game against Esperanza at Anaheim Stadium. Pond, who led Marmonte League players in hitting, enters the game batting .519 with 51 runs, 55 hits and 47 RBIs. Hankins is batting .510 with 53 hits, 42 runs and team-high totals of 12 home runs and 57 RBIs.

All three have broken the school’s single-season marks for hits, runs and RBIs set by Shaun Murphy, now a Pioneer assistant, in 1985. Murphy had 41 runs, 47 hits and 46 RBIs. Right fielder Aaron Whitley also has scored 50 runs.

“Three guys on this team have set records this season,” Scyphers said. “And those are records I thought would never be broken.”

MARMONTE LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Note to Ventura College baseball Coach Gary Anglin: Nice try.

Anglin is in the process of recruiting Thousand Oaks speedster Jamal Nichols, who has not decided where he will play next season. Anglin last month invited Nichols to dinner and brought along a friend to help recruit the senior outfielder.

Although Anglin brought along the guest to make an impression on Nichols, it didn’t exactly work as planned.

Said Nichols after the dinner: “(Anglin) brought this guy who played in the major leagues. What was his name?

“I think he played 10 years in the majors or something. Maybe for Cleveland?”

Was it former Ventura College and Cleveland third baseman Brook Jacoby, by any chance.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Nichols said. “Who is he? I don’t think I’ve heard of him before.”

MISCELLANY

BASEBALL

Consider the parallels between the region’s best City Section and Southern Section pitchers this season:

* El Camino Real left-hander Randy Wolf finished 11-1. Crespi right-hander Jeff Suppan finished 11-1.

* Wolf struck out 118 batters in 79 1/3 innings (1.48 strikeouts per inning) and had an earned-run average of 1.05. Suppan struck out 127 in 91 innings (1.40 per inning) and had an ERA of 0.95.

* Suppan pitched a no-hitter against Harvard-Westlake. Wolf threw a no-hitter against Taft and a perfect game in the playoffs against Banning.

* Suppan had a streak at midseason during which he did not allow a run over 42 consecutive innings. Wolf allowed one run (unearned) over his last four appearances, covering 25 innings. Over that span, Wolf allowed three singles--and two were infield hits. The unearned run scored with two out in the seventh inning of the last game of the year, the City 4-A final.

NORTHWEST VALLEY CONFERENCE

BASEBALL

Coach Mike Maio didn’t even tell his El Camino Real team until after the City 4-A final. “It’s something I didn’t want them to have to deal with,” Maio said. “I’m kind of private about that sort of thing.”

For the second time in as many years, a coach in the 4-A final was forced to deal with personal tragedy while trying to prepare for the game.

The mother of Roseanne Maio, the coach’s wife of 28 years, passed away earlier last week. Last season, Poly Coach Jerry Cord’s son was buried the day before the Parrots faced San Pedro at Dodger Stadium.

Maio flew to Denver for the funeral Friday, the day after El Camino Real edged Chatsworth, 7-6.

The trip to Dodger Stadium brought back a flood of memories for a handful of El Camino Real players who had been called up from the junior varsity for the team’s trip to the championship game in 1990.

Kevin Szymanski, the winning pitcher against Chatsworth last week, said that in 1990 he was assigned a locker last used by outfielder Paul O’Neill, then with the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds had been in town on a recent Dodger homestand and O’Neill’s name was still on the locker in the visiting clubhouse.

Shortstop Dan Cey, also promoted from the JV team in 1990, remembers climbing aboard the team bus a few minutes after a heart-rending 3-2 loss to Chatsworth.

Cey then realized he had blundered: His seething teammates were forced to wait while Cey ran back into the stadium to retrieve his glove, which he had left in the dugout.

Cey said if he now was made to wait 10 minutes on the bus because of a JV player’s forgetfulness, he would not stand for it. Cey had trouble departing in 1990, and the team had trouble arriving in 1993.

For some reason, all but one gate at Dodger Stadium was closed to traffic, forcing fans to drive around the perimeter of the stadium in search of the proper entry point.

The El Camino Real team bus had more trouble than most, Cey said.

“We took a 20-minute drive through Chinatown,” Cey said.

Maybe it’s the name: Mike Smith.

Doesn’t exactly breed recognition, yet Maio said Smith “is a very underrated player” who hasn’t gotten credit for his contributions.

Thursday night, Smith made a crucial play in the top of the sixth, with El Camino Real holding a 6-5 lead. With runners at second and third, Chatsworth shortstop Bryan LaCour hit a shot into left-center field, but Smith caught the ball with a headlong dive to his left.

“He’s done that kind of thing before,” Maio said. “We see him play every day.”

Definitely one for the Smith family highlight reel, though. The senior outfielder also was two for two and drove in a first-inning run as the Conquistadores began climbing out of a five-run hole.

Lost in the mix: Chatsworth successfully executed the hit-and-run play three times in the 4-A final. Batters Brandon Murphy, Ray Daryabigi and Luis Enriquez turned the trick.

Szymanski, Cey, Smith and third baseman Justin Balser were the four players promoted for the 4-A final as freshmen in 1990, but a Chatsworth player was on the field before too.

LaCour served as the Chatsworth bat boy along with Notre Dame pitcher Chris Leveque at the 4-A final in 1983.

LaCour, a junior shortstop, didn’t remember much about his team’s 17-1 pasting of Taft in the 4-A semifinals last week. In a manner of speaking, LaCour was asleep at the wheel.

It seems that LaCour was caught in a second-inning rundown between third and home when he hit his head on the leg of Taft shortstop Gabe Kapler while diving back to third. LaCour reportedly has no memory of the next three innings.

“He can’t remember much of anything,” said his father, Jeff LaCour. “He doesn’t remember the at-bat he had or the error he made.”

The Kennedy supply line has ended.

Catcher David Bourne was the third member of his family to play for the Golden Cougars. Older brothers Travis and Troy were starters and key members of previous Kennedy teams.

David has four younger brothers who were expected to keep the Bourne name in Kennedy linescores for years to come, but that has all changed--and in surprisingly quick fashion.

After 21 years on the job, Ken Bourne is retiring from his position as a bunco detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and has accepted a job at a bank in Salt Lake City.

According to David, his father accepted the position last Wednesday and the family sold their house in Granada Hills on Saturday. Bourne’s parents will begin searching for a home in Salt Lake City immediately, David said. “Things have really happened fast,” David said.

MISSION LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Few expected Notre Dame catcher Dave Supple to be taken in the major league baseball amateur draft last week. It even took his father by surprise. “I thought it was a joke,” Dave Sr. said of the phone call in which a scout told him the Angels had taken his son in the 50th round. “I thought it was one of my friends calling up.”

Supple batted only .211, but he led the team with six home runs and is considered an excellent defensive catcher. The Angels are likely hoping Supple will develop in the next year. Assuming he plays at Pierce College, as he plans to, the Angels retain Supple’s rights until a week before the 1994 draft.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher and Vince Kowalick contributed to this notebook.