Harvard-Westlake’s 400 Relay Team Making Brilliant Strides

The Harvard-Westlake High boys’ 400 relay team of Charu Turner, Michael Borden, Steve Durbin and Kadar Lewis didn’t run together until the Mission League finals last month, but that hasn’t seemed to slow them.

They won the league title with a 42.78 clocking, placed second in the Southern Section Division III championships at 42.23 and lowered the school record to 41.95 to finish fifth in the Masters meet and qualify for the State championships.

Just wait until they get their handoffs down.

“If we put together a race with three outstanding passes, we can run in the 41.6s and that might get us into the State final,” Harvard Coach Jonas Koolsbergen said.

The Wolverine foursome already is tops in one area: There’s probably not a relay team in the state more accomplished in the classroom.

Seniors Lewis, Turner and Borden in the fall are set to attend Harvard, Brown and Yale, respectively.

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Trivia question: Before this year, only once since 1989 had a local player not been selected in the first round of the major league baseball amateur draft. Which year was it?

Also, name the five players from the region who have been first-round picks since 1989.

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Name game: Van Nuys-based Sprint Car driver John Ryals prefers to be known as Skidroe Prone, a gag moniker that refers to his hard luck at the race track.

“When I was young and wanted to get to the Indy 500, I used to do it to get noticed,” Ryals said.

“Now I do it to keep from being recognized.”

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Borrowed wheels: Richard Webster of Camarillo, the defending Mini Stock points champion at Ventura Raceway, won a 15-lap feature race last Friday in a borrowed car--the same Ford Pinto in which he won last year’s title.

The car’s owner, Gary Swenson, turned his wheels back over to Webster when it became clear that auto racing was interfering with his sailboat racing.

Webster doesn’t race full time, either, but he is eighth in the points standings despite having missed half of six races.

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Trivia answer: 1) 1993, when four players were taken in the second round.

2) Saugus High right-hander Roger Salkeld, by the Seattle Mariners in 1989; Westlake catcher Mike Lieberthal, by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1990; Rio Mesa infielder Dmitri Young, by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1991; Chatsworth High and Pepperdine right-hander Derek Wallace, by the Chicago Cubs in 1992; and Channel Islands High and Arizona State center fielder Jacob Cruz, by the San Francisco Giants in 1994.

Honors

By placing sixth in the javelin at the NCAA track and field championships on Wednesday, Kristin Dunn extended Cal State Northridge’s streak of producing All-Americans to five years. A Matador athlete has earned All-American honors each year since the school started competing at the Division I level in 1990.

Darcy Arreola won the women’s 1,500 meters in 1991 and Garrett Noel placed eighth in the men’s javelin in ’92 and ninth in ’93. Dunn placed third in the women’s javelin last year.

The top eight finishers in each event with U.S. citizenship are recognized as All-Americans.

Senior Kasey Canale of Crescenta Valley High has been selected Pacific League baseball player of the year. Canale, a second baseman, batted a team-high .450 with seven extra-base hits and 23 runs batted in, leading the Falcons to a second consecutive league championship.

Quotebook

“The bodies showed up. Who knows where the brains were.”

A member of driver Steve Nickolai’s pit crew, commenting on a crash that marred a Super Late Model feature race Saturday night.

Stats

Campbell Hall High’s baseball team was eliminated from Southern Section tournament contention when it lost a one-game playoff to Faith Baptist a few weeks ago, but the Vikings still had a banner year compared to seasons past.

Campbell Hall finished with a record of 12-8 under first-year Coach Joe Sciuto, compared to 1-19 the previous season. The team set school season records for victories, Delphic League victories (5), runs (174), home runs (9) and doubles (47).

The team’s top players were John Pollak, who batted a team-high .448, Andreas Fehrle, who had 27 RBIs and 17 stolen bases, and Helemanu Wallace, who finished with a .727 slugging percentage.

Despite allowing 90 earned runs in 103 2/3 innings--a 7.81 ERA--Cal State Northridge senior Aaron D’Aoust finished his two-year career as a Matador with a record of 10-4.

Northridge’s pitching staff, which in previous seasons has ranked among national leaders in complete games, made 157 appearances--the most by the team since the school moved to NCAA Division I five years ago.

Matador pitchers recorded a relatively low 12 complete games, including eight by junior Rob Crabtree.

Keven Kempton, a senior who went the distance only once this season, had 13 complete games in 1992.

Crabtree finished with 126 strikeouts and 30 walks, a better than 4-to-1 ratio.

* Compiled by Mike Hiserman. Contributing: Darin Esper, Jeff Fletcher, Dana Haddad, Vince Kowalick, John Ortega, Bryan Rodgers.