Irvine Valley’s Hernandez Keeps His Cool While Others Lose Their Grip

It’s time for a look at some of the cool and uncool things going on in the Orange Empire Conference.

Cool: The manner in which first-year Irvine Valley Coach Jerry Hernandez goes about his job.

During games, Hernandez, a walk-on, is the calmest coach in the Orange Empire Conference.

He is a former assistant at Cerritos College and Cal Poly Pomona. Hernandez got the job at Irvine Valley in mid-summer and had already been lapped a couple times in the recruiting race.

Still, he has been able to assemble a solid team. The Lasers are 12-13, 3-5 in conference.

Irvine Valley is one of two teams to beat Ventura this season. The Vikings are the defending state champions and are ranked No. 1 again this season.

Uncool: The final seconds of the Saddleback-Irvine Valley women’s game Friday. Saddleback, ranked second in the state, trailed, 39-27, at halftime after inspired early play by Irvine Valley.

But the Gauchos exerted their inside power in the second half and went on a 17-0 run to build a 58-50 lead. Saddleback was ahead, 66-57, with 22 seconds left when the coaches then took part in a timeout battle.

In that time there were four timeouts and two fouls called.

With one second left, there was a foul called on an Irvine Valley player and Saddleback called another timeout.

There was also an exchange of not-so-nice pleasantries between coaches Jack Single (Saddleback) and Lisa McNamee (Irvine Valley) on the court afterward.

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Cool: The crowd of about 1,000 that watched the Saddleback men’s and women’s teams sweep Wednesday at Riverside.

The tight games, combined with the college’s band, kept the gym loud from Anthony Carter’s dunk to start the men’s game at 5:30 p.m. through LaShieka Henderson’s free throw with no time remaining to give Saddleback a 70-69 victory at 10 p.m.

Speaking of cool, no one has a better pair of postgame shoes than Henderson, who was seen in Tasmanian Devil slippers.

Uncool: The crowds, often of less than 100, that attend games in Orange County.

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Cool: The baseball season starts Friday with each of Orange County’s six teams playing four games in two days.

Rancho Santiago, the defending state champion, hosts Los Angeles Pierce at 10 a.m. Friday in the Cooperhead tournament. Rancho Santiago plays again at home at 2 p.m. against Canyons.

The Dons, who also won the state title in 1993, won their final 15 games last season. Coach Don Sneddon is excited about this season.

“I like our position players as much as I did last year,” Sneddon said. “The question is how well will our pitchers do. Last season was great, but it’s not like we get an extra run in each game for being the defending state champions.”

Canyons is at Orange Coast and Pima (Ariz.) is at Fullerton at 10 a.m. Friday in the same tournament.

Uncool: Last season, the baseball coaches complained about the new tournament format that required teams to play two doubleheaders in two days instead of spreading games over three or four days. It was an effort to limit travel and other expenses.

The baseball coaches, who were the only group of coaches last year who responded to the state office’s call to cut costs, hoped to revert this season to a tournament format where matchups were determined by winning and losing and not a predetermined schedule.

But their proposal was voted down last month by the Commission On Athletics, which oversees the state’s community college athletic programs.

“They think we are always trying to get something,” Fullerton Coach Nick Fuscardo said.

Said Sneddon: “We have a real image problem. It was very disappointing. Our proposal would have us playing only one game Friday so the players would miss fewer classes.”

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For what it’s worth: Visiting teams won 15 games and lost 13 in the first round of Orange Empire Conference men’s and women’s basketball games.