1994 LOS ANGELES TIMES : All-Ventura Baseball Team : Player & Pitcher of the Year : For Winners Only : Ryan Hankins: Statistics alone don’t gauge the value of Simi Valley High’s fielding and hitting star.

Ryan Hankins’ batting average, home runs and runs batted in all declined from his junior year to his senior year.

But that is only half the story.

Last season, Hankins, Simi Valley High’s third baseman, was part of a power-packed lineup that rolled into the Southern Section Division I championship game. This season, most of those hitters were gone, leaving Hankins with a team on his back.

He still managed to hit .483 with nine home runs and 27 runs batted in, good enough to be named The Times’ Ventura County player of the year. He led the Marmonte League in hitting and led the county in home runs, but the numbers were still down from his junior year, when he batted .500 with 12 home runs and 57 RBIs.

“He knew he wasn’t going to be coming up with runners at second and third every time,” Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers said. “We knew he was going to be pitched around. I think that added a tremendous amount of pressure to his senior year, but I think he responded really nicely.”

Particularly down the stretch.

Bill Scheffels, the only other hitter in the Pioneers’ order feared as much as Hankins, missed the last month of the season after he was suspended for phoning in a prank bomb threat at school.

The team also faced controversy when Scyphers, who was suspended pending a police investigation into possible financial and disciplinary improprieties, missed the final month of the season.

In the face of it all, Hankins hit three home runs in the final two games, vaulting the Pioneers into the playoffs. Simi Valley advanced to the quarterfinals.

“He got hot down the stretch,” Scyphers said. “I think that really made him feel a lot better about things. I think he was pressing a little bit with his power (early in the season).”

After the stars of the 1993 team graduated, Hankins said, he felt responsible for carrying the offensive load.

“I was in a slump in the early part of the season and my dad talked to me,” Hankins said. “He said you have to be in the flow. You can’t put all the pressure on yourself.”

Hankins, tabbed by Baseball America magazine in the preseason as a second-team high school All-American, finished his career with several school records. A four-year varsity player, Hankins holds career marks for his .462 batting average, 128 hits, 110 RBIs and 25 doubles. His 57 RBIs last season remain a school single-season record.

And Hankins, who has signed with UNLV and was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies, set another record when he was a freshman that still stands: three hits in one inning.

But the record that impresses Scyphers the most is one he set this season, when he started all 27 games and made only one error.

“He elevated his defense to another level,” Scyphers said. “When he was a sophomore, he had a decent arm, but his glove was just adequate. But by this year he was much better. He had only one error all year, and in high school, playing third base on the fields we play on, that’s incredible.”

1st-Team All-Stars Invited to Times’ Awards Ceremony

Players selected to the All-Valley and All-Ventura County baseball and softball teams are invited to a Times’ awards brunch Sunday at 9 a.m. at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The guest speaker is Rich Hill, baseball coach at University of San Francisco who formerly coached at Cal Lutheran.