Time of Their Lives : An Hour-by-Hour Countdown to the City Championship Game for Kennedy and Poly

Perhaps no other day is bigger in the life of a high school athlete than one involving a championship game.

For the baseball players at Kennedy and Poly highs, such a day came Wednesday, when they met for the City Section 4-A Division title at Dodger Stadium.

Through the day at both schools, players, coaches, administrators and students geared up for the night game. Elsewhere, relatives and friends did likewise.

Here is an account of their day:

4:15 a.m.--Poly Coach Chuck Schwal wakes up after barely four hours of sleep and works out for a half-hour on his climbing machine. “I had to get rid of some nervous energy,” he says.

5:30 a.m.--Roger Eckert, one of Poly’s most-ardent supporters, returns home from breakfast at a coffee shop and pastes newspaper clippings of the Parrots’ 6-4 semifinal victory over Chatsworth into a scrapbook he plans to give the players at their awards banquet.

Eckert, 51, is a 1962 graduate of Poly, where he played on the baseball team for two seasons with former NBA star Gail Goodrich, a childhood friend. “We usually took second place [in league play],” Eckert says. “Now it’s a different story. This team is just great.”

6:30 a.m.--Poly drama instructor Bonnie Bryson puts on her “playoff dress,” a blue flower-print garment that she has worn (without washing) on the days of each Parrot playoff game. Bryson has been one of the team’s most-loyal fans, traveling to Las Vegas for a tournament and working in the school concession stand with her play-production students. “I’m a mom and a teacher all mixed together,” she says of her role with the players, most of whom she taught in 10th-grade English. “They were all little pains in the neck back then. Now they’re great young men.”

6:30 a.m.--Fernando Centeno, the Ecuadorean-born right-fielder for Kennedy, is up and ready for game day. Centeno resides with a family friend in Granada Hills because his parents live in Ecuador.

But this morning Centeno has breakfast with his parents Cesar and Elsa, who are in town to watch their son play baseball for the first time in nearly two years. They saw him hit a double and a triple Tuesday in a 7-0 victory over El Camino Real in a semifinal game.

7 a.m.--Schwal visits his favorite bagel shop in Northridge, a daily ritual for the coach since Poly started a 16-game winning streak after losing to San Clemente on April 9 in the Birmingham tournament. Schwal sits in the same spot and orders his usual: two sun-dried tomato bagels, a coffee and a water.

7 a.m.--Coach Manny Alvarado is in his Kennedy office, going over the scouting report on Poly.

“The report is huge,” he says. “The kids know you are doing your job [by being prepared]. That’s real important.”

Alvarado guided the Golden Cougars to the 4-A title in 1995 and says that he wants to repeat. He doesn’t buy into the idea that just being to the championship game is a big-enough deal.

“We are going there to win,” he says.

7:20 a.m.--Left-fielder Nick Intenzo arrives at Kennedy and gathers with about seven teammates to talk about the championship game.

Intenzo says they’ve followed the routine all season. But this time, he says, standing by the baseball field was difficult.

“I can’t believe this is our last high school game together,” Intenzo says. “But we are so pumped.”

7:30 a.m.--Poly senior Steve Guerrero drinks his morning glass of milk and thinks about what it will be like to pitch in the biggest game of his life. “The spotlight is going to be on,” he says.

8 a.m.--Schwal and assistant Jimmy Ikeda, both science teachers at Poly, combine their classes so they can formulate a

scouting report on Kennedy. Schwal knows the Golden Cougars better than most coaches, having served as Kennedy’s pitching coach in 1989 and its junior varsity coach from 1990 to ’92. Of Alvarado, Schwal says, “He’s my mentor.”

9:15 a.m.--Kennedy senior outfielder Jared Morris gets a few good-luck charms from classmates in his history class.

One girl gives him a note wishing him luck, another gives him a stick of chewing gum he can’t unwrap until the game and one more presents him with a small ink drawing of a ladybug.

“She gave a drawing of a ladybug to one of the guys on the team last year and we won,” Morris says.

12:10 p.m.--Kennedy holds a lunchtime pep rally in the gym.

While people file in, senior second baseman Mike Ramirez sits on the bleachers and has his hair braided by friend Stefanie Molina.

“I do this before every game,” Ramirez says. “It’s good luck. I’m a little superstitious, I guess.”

12:25 p.m.--Designated hitter Christian Bartlett and girlfriend Elaine Pacheco, an outfielder on the school’s softball team, stand together in the Kennedy gym during the pep rally.

“He’s been antsy today,” Pacheco says about Bartlett. “He’s kind of nervous.”

12:35 p.m.--Schwal introduces his players to the student body during a pep rally, which is highlighted minutes later by a mock wrestling match between teachers Alex “The Cobra” Morice and Lee “The Dark Crusader” Jackson. After 10 minutes of flying kicks and death dives, Morice and Jackson are pinned by Athletic Director Kim McEwen, who triumphantly stands on her victims dressed as Poly Parrot, the school’s mascot.

1:20 p.m.--Schwal goes over the scouting report and signals with his starters. He instructs the players to walk around Dodger Stadium and become familiar with the field so they will feel less intimidated. “Forget about the 5,000 people and the stadium, and you’ll be fine,” he says. Before letting the players go home, Schwal gives them one final piece of advice: “Stay away from greasy food.”

1:30 p.m.--The Kennedy players--coaches are not invited--take over a nearby pizza parlor for their last pregame meal together.

1:35 p.m.--Poly catcher Travis McGivern, the vocal leader of the team, compares playing on the successful baseball team with playing quarterback on the 2-8 football team. “There was no unity on the football team,” the senior co-captain says. “That’s the biggest difference between that team and this one. It’s closer than any other team I’ve been on.”

2:30 p.m.--Guerrero, Poly’s starting pitcher Wednesday, frequently thinks about his older brother, Rene, who was killed in an accidental shooting at Guerrero’s former home in North Hollywood in 1990. A cousin visiting from Mexico grabbed a shotgun belonging to Guerrero’s father because he wanted to have his picture taken with it. But the gun went off in Luis Escobar’s hands and struck Rene in the head, killing him at the age of 16. Steve Guerrero, who was 12 at the time, witnessed the shooting.

“I always think about him, how he would love to be here to see me play in the championship game,” Guerrero said. “Somehow, he’s looking on.”

Guerrero said his family did not press charges against Escobar, who returned to Mexico and reportedly has led a troubled life. “He’s still shaken up about it,” Guerrero said of Escobar, who is in his early 20s. “He’s had a lot of mental problems.” Guerrero said his family remained strong following the tragedy. “It was traumatic, but we had to overcome it.”

2:30 p.m.--From the pizza place, Kennedy players move to center fielder Adam Rofer’s home to play pool and, as Rofer puts it, “just hang around.”

Rofer says it’s the same thing the team did last year and, hey, the outcome wasn’t too shabby.

3 p.m.--The players and coaches aren’t the only ones who are superstitious. Senior Alma Castellanos, Poly’s scorekeeper for the past three seasons, changes into the T-shirt and blue jeans she wore Tuesday during the Parrots’ semifinal victory over Chatsworth. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” she says.

4 p.m.--Poly outfielder Lucas LaTouf, a senior co-captain, eats a pregame meal consisting of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, two nectarines and a Sprite. He ate the same meal before Poly’s two previous playoff games and batted six for nine.

4:30 p.m.--Team buses leave Kennedy and Poly for Dodger Stadium.

4:31 p.m.--Longtime Poly assistant Bobby Mesa, accompanied by Eckert, follows the team bus in his 1966 Chevy Malibu. Mesa has driven himself to all of Poly’s away games this season. “I haven’t been on the bus all year and we’ve won,” Mesa says. “I’m not going to ruin it now.”

5 p.m.--About 20 members of Jon Garland’s family gather at his home for a spaghetti dinner prepared by his mother Vikki.

Garland, a 6-foot-5 junior right-hander, pitched a one-hitter with 12 strikeouts in Tuesday’s semifinal victory over El Camino Real.

“I was a little more nervous about Tuesday’s game than I am about tonight’s,” Vikki Garland says.

5 p.m.--Simon Guerrero, the father of Steve Guerrero, cancels practice for the Little League team he coaches in Sun Valley so the players can attend the City championship game and root for Poly.

6:24 p.m.--Kennedy batboy Isaac Montes readies the team’s dugout as the players begin to loosen up.

Montes, the 12-year-old son of Kennedy assistant Andy Montes, has gold paint on his eyebrows and cleats, with “Kennedy” written in gold on his right arm and “Cougars” on his left.

7:22 p.m.--In a box seat behind the Poly dugout, Simon Guerrero waits for his son Steve to throw the game’s first pitch.

“I told him to relax,” says Simon, a pencil behind his ear, a scorebook in his lap. “That it’s really just another game.”

7:33 p.m.--Steve’s first pitch to Kennedy leadoff hitter Josh Miranda is in the dirt. His next two also miss the strike zone.

“Uh-oh,” Simon mutters.

On the fourth pitch, Steve induces Miranda to ground out to second baseman Cesar Rodriguez. Simon stands and cheers. The game is on.