Notebook : Jones Returns to Drive Buena Park to Playoffs

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what keyed Buena Park’s drive to make the baseball playoffs: outfielder Timmy Jones.

Jones, academically ineligible at the start of the season, returned five games ago. He has made an impact, to say the least. Before Jones joined the team, Buena Park averaged five runs a game and had a 7-9-1 record. With Jones, the Coyotes have scored 55 runs and have gone 5-0.

Last year, Jones hit .458 with 27 stolen bases. This year, he played football but missed the soccer season and most of the baseball season because of poor grades.

“We were extremely disappointed when we heard he was ineligible,” Buena Park Coach Dave Meggison said. “We knew exactly when he was coming back. We were just trying to stay close until he came back. He takes a lot of pressure off the rest of the team.”

And he puts a lot of pressure on opposing pitchers with his power and speed.

“The ones who didn’t have to face him were happy he came back when he did, and the ones who did have to face him probably wished he hadn’t come back at all,” Meggison said.

In five games, Jones has gone seven for 17 with two doubles, three home runs, 11 runs batted in, nine runs scored and five walks. He also made a diving catch with the bases loaded against Sunny Hills.

“There are scouts all over him,” Meggison said. “At our last game, we had double digits in scouts looking at him. With his speed and power, he’s got two of the things scouts look for.”

But Meggison said Jones’ power displays have some drawbacks.

“He’s probably cost us $60 a week in baseballs,” he said. “The right-field fence faces Magnolia [Avenue] and he hits them out there on the street all the time.”

The Coyotes (12-9-1, 8-6-1) overtook Fullerton and finished third in the Freeway League.

*

The final week of the regular season brought an end to some impressive softball streaks. Fullerton pitcher Angie Fancuberta’s scoreless inning streak ended at 57 on the season’s final day as Troy scored in the bottom of the seventh. Fullerton won, 5-1.

County earned-run average leader Marcy Crouch of Marina gave up her first earned run in 78 innings one week ago when Esperanza’s Wendy Harrison homered in the third inning of Marina’s 7-2 victory.

El Dorado scored five runs in the sixth inning of a showdown with Kennedy and won, 6-3. Kennedy had won 15 of 16 games before the loss but still won the league title.

*

Sprinter Greg Cleave of Cypress has verbally committed to Long Beach State. Cleave had bests of 10.7 seconds in the 100 meters and 20-10 1/2 in the long jump but failed to qualify for the Southern Section preliminaries in the 100 and 200 meters for the first time in four years after pulling his hamstring during the Empire League finals.

*

Ed Marquez of Mater Dei accepted a scholarship to play baseball at Loyola Marymount, Monarch Coach Bob Ickes said. Marquez, a center fielder, is batting .381.

Times staff writers Martin Henderson and Dave McKibben contributed to this notebook.