Thousand Oaks Still Tough on Hardwood

Dunk it or spike it? Seven of the 12 players on the unbeaten Thousand Oaks volleyball team have made the transition from basketball look easy.

Jason Hartman, the Ventura County basketball player of the year who has signed to play for Washington, is a 6-foot-7 middle blocker for the Lancers.

Also playing both sports are Paul Brandt, Mike Friel, Sam Parmalee, Jeff Nowak, Ricky Furino and David Grimm.

The Lancers (6-0) scored the biggest victory in the history of the program by upsetting Royal, the top-ranked team in Division II, in five games Tuesday.

The loss was Royal’s first in league play in seven years.

The Highlanders, in fact, had won 66 consecutive matches, never even losing a game during that time.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

Playing the Triangle

Watching the Newbury Park baseball team is a little like watching volleyball. After a sideout, rotate.

Keith Smith, Ray Clinton and Matt Cassaro form an interesting triangle. When Smith pitches, Clinton plays third and Cassaro plays shortstop. When Clinton pitches, Cassaro plays third and Smith plays shortstop.

FOOTHILL LEAGUE

Out of Nowhere

Canyon High boys’ volleyball Coach Ardyce Masters counts herself lucky that Pat Backes wasn’t a star baseball player.

Backes played junior varsity baseball as a freshman and sophomore, but when he failed to make the varsity as a junior, he gave up the sport.

This winter the 6-foot-4 senior, who was an accomplished volleyball player in his church league, decided to try out for the Canyon volleyball team.

Masters had never heard of Backes before this season. Now, he is one of her starting middle blockers.

“I call him our gift,” she said. “I said, ‘Where were you for the past three years?’ I was shocked--he’s a great player.”

Backes is among the top three players in kills and blocks and helped Canyon win its first five matches.

“We were missing a middle blocker, so he just filled a massive hole in the team,” Masters said. “We’re an exceedingly complete team with him.”

WEST VALLEY LEAGUE

Let’s Skip the First

Taft has started well despite not starting well--the Toreadors are 4-3 but have a nasty habit of surrendering too many runs in the first inning.

Taft pitchers have allowed four, four, six, and eight runs in various first innings.

“It’s the first-inning blues, I guess,” Coach Rich McKeon said. “If we can get out of the first inning without giving up a ton of runs we seem to settle down.

“We’re trying to solve that mystery right now.”

*

Harry Kenoi, Chatsworth’s No. 2 starter last season and a key player in the team’s drive to the City Section 4-A Division final, has not pitched this season.

The junior right-hander has been sidelined by a sore right deltoid muscle. Coach Tom Meusborn said there is no telling when Kenoi, who was 6-1 with a 2.36 earned-run average last season, will recover.

But Meusborn has been encouraged with the progress of junior Fred Farzaneh, who earned his first victory by beating Roosevelt last week in the Sylmar tournament final. “He gets better each time he throws,” Meusborn said.

*

Struggling out of the gate has been Chatsworth shortstop Bryan LaCour, who has signed with Stanford and was a Times’ All-Valley selection last season after hitting .446 with 16 doubles.

After five games, LaCour was hitting only .273. More tellingly, the team lost twice and the senior began pressing.

“He’s been trying to carry the team on his back,” Meusborn said. “He lives and dies with every mistake, and you can’t do that. That stuff eats at him.”

Meusborn was encouraged by LaCour’s performance last week, when he had four hits--including three doubles--in 11 at-bats. Chatsworth won all three of its games.

FRONTIER LEAGUE

Scouts in Ojai

Nordhoff’s baseball team won only three games last season and, frankly, Coach Steve Blundell wondered if the 1994 team would be much better.

But the Rangers are 4-3-1, thanks mainly to defense (only four errors in seven games) and pitching.

Junior left-hander Mike Walsh is 3-1, and sophomore right-hander Ben Blanton has two saves and an ERA of 0.60.

In the nine years Blundell has lived and worked in Ojai, no Nordhoff player has been drafted, but during the first inning of the Rangers’ 1-0 loss to Moorpark last week, a St. Louis Cardinal scout entered the dugout and introduced himself. Walsh proceeded to throw a two-hitter in the losing cause.

“We knew he had hidden talent,” Blundell said of Walsh. “He’s got a strong arm and we’re teaching him a split-finger curve. It’s just a building process.”

CHANNEL LEAGUE

Got Any Change?

You almost expected to see the Rio Mesa hitters digging into their pockets for more quarters. But they weren’t hitting against a pitching machine, just Oxnard pitchers.

The Spartans won, 16-0, Tuesday and banged out 20 hits. Four players--Steve Arneson, Chad Snyder, Eric Flores and Vince Roman--each had four hits.

Arneson drove in five runs. Snyder also drove in three runs. Roman hit a home run.

Watching runners circle the bases is becoming all too familiar for Oxnard pitchers. Just two games earlier, they allowed 18 runs against Channel Islands.

MISSION LEAGUE

Dead (Heat) in the Water

Heading into the final race, Chaminade needed first- and second-place finishes in the 400 freestyle relay to win a boys’ swim meet against Alemany on Tuesday.

Chaminade’s top team of Sean Feeney, Mike Vercillo, Nick Smith and Kevin Rodin won as expected, and the second team finished third, leaving the Eagles and Indians dead even, 85-85.

“It was kind of anticlimactic since we’d come from behind to get something,” Coach Dale Rodin said. “I guess it beats a loss.”

Rodin found inspiration with his girls’ team, which upset the Indians, 96-74. The victory was his first over the Alemany girls.

Around the Leagues. . . .

* The Birmingham boys’ track and field team won its 53rd consecutive dual meet with a 78-49 victory over North Hollywood last Thursday. The Braves, second, first and second in the past three City Section championships, have not lost a dual meet since 1987.

* Nevada Las Vegas and UC Santa Barbara are among the schools recruiting Simi Valley third baseman Ryan Hankins, who recently met the NCAA minimum score of 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

* Justin Bunch leads Notre Dame (6-1, 2-0) with a .476 batting average. Rich Igou leads the Knights with eight runs batted in 11 at-bats. The left-hander has a 3-1 pitching record and a 1.78 earned-run average.

* Sylmar first baseman Art Diaz is batting .556 in 27 at-bats and has scored 15 runs in eight games. Eight of his 15 hits have gone for extra bases. Senior right-hander Carlos Velazco (3-1) has 45 strikeouts in 28 2/3 innings.

* Canoga Park and Birmingham, the Mid-Valley League doormats last season, had the best winning percentages (.400) entering league play Monday. Monroe, the defending league champion, was 1-4.

* Verdugo Hills is averaging 7.2 runs a game but has won only one of five. The problem: the Dons’ opponents are averaging 9.8 runs a game.

* Quite a difference in records between East Valley and Mid-Valley League teams before the start of Valley Pac-8 Conference play Monday. East Valley teams went 16-8 in the preseason compared to Mid-Valley’s 8-14-1 record.

* Two Camarillo volleyball players set school single-match records in Tuesday’s five-game victory over Agoura. Setter Wayne Anderson had 61 assists and Brian Isleib registered 29 kills.

Wolf on the Prowl

El Camino Real pitcher Randy Wolf, last season’s City Section 4-A Division player of the year, dominated opponents last season and has continued his remarkable pitching this season. Tuesday, he lost his first game since May. Here’s a look at Wolf’s last seven starts:

Date Opponent (Score) IP H ER BB K 3/22/94 Granada Hills (L, 1-0) 7 5 1 2 8 3/15/94 Monroe (W, 10-1) 7 2 1 1 7 3/10/94 Thousand Oaks (W, 4-2) 7 3 0 4 12 3/4/94 Birmingham (W, 11-0) 7 1 0 1 5 6/1/93 Monroe (W, 6-0, City semifinal) 7 3 0 1 12 5/27/93 Banning (W, 6-0, City quarterfinal) 7 0 0 0 9 5/18/93 Taft (W, 3-0) 7 0 0 5 14 Career (1993-94) 107 1/3 48 14 45 159

Note: Wolf also earned a save in last season’s City 4-A championship victory over Chatsworth on June 3. He pitched two innings, surrendered two hits and one earned run.

Note: Wolf’s career record is 14-2. Until, Tuesday, his only loss as a high school pitcher came against Taft on May 4, 1993. He pitched a no-hitter through five innings but then gave up two earned runs and lost, 2-1.

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, Dana Haddad, Michael Lazarus, Paige A. Leech and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.