Bowne Was in Good Hands With Corps of All-Star Receivers

The Southern Section-City Section all-star football game had ended but Ryan Bowne, the Notre Dame High quarterback, was still saying goodbye to his new friends on the Southern Section team, shaking hands and asking them to stay in touch.

Bowne, who will walk on at UCLA in the fall, also accepted a compliment from a player headed to USC.

“We’ll be seeing you in the Rose Bowl,” Serra High’s Darnell Lacy said.

USC and UCLA meet this year in Pasadena and Bowne hopes he makes the team. He performed like a Division I player in Monday’s game, completing 12 of 19 passes for 157 yards and a touchdown in the Southern Section’s 7-6 victory.

His main targets were Notre Dame teammate Troy Garner and Chaminade’s Gabe Crecion. “You play with all-stars, you get guys making your job real easy,” Bowne said. “I just had to put the ball in the near vicinity.”

Bowne and Garner connected five times for 52 yards, including the go-ahead touchdown in the second quarter. Crecion caught three passes for 51 yards.

School spirit: Neither offense produced at hair-raising rates. But Sylmar High tailback Durell Price scored some hair points of his own.

Price, who will play at UCLA in the fall, dyed his hair gold and added a green stripe down the back of his head to match the colors of the City’s team jerseys.

“It’s my last [high school] football game, I might as well do it to the fullest,” said Price, who carried eight times for 16 yards. “It was time to pull out all the stops and do something way out.”

Tough call: Cleveland’s Junior Brignac might have played his last football game.

Brignac was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the third round of last week’s amateur baseball draft and might bypass a football scholarship from Washington.

“It’s going to be a tough decision,” said Brignac, who plays wide receiver in football and shortstop in baseball. “Along with the excitement comes a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. For a teenager to make this decision, it’s tough. But whatever decision I make will be the right one.”

Brignac did make a small revelation: “I’m leaning toward baseball,” he said.

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Breaking the code: That wasn’t Zorro that JetHawk pitching Coach Juan Eichelberger was looking for Wednesday night.

It was Tom Szimanski.

Because there aren’t phones to reach the bullpen in most minor league ballparks, the JetHawks have a system of signals Eichelberger flashes to the pen to indicate who he wants to warm up.

In the fifth inning Wednesday night, Eichelberger stepped in front of the dugout, looked to the bullpen and signed a big “Z” with his right hand--like Zorro doing his signature move with a sword--to start warming up Szimanski (nickname: Z-man.)

Some of the other signals Eichelberger has used: a bodybuilder pose to call Clint Gould (the best-built reliever) and fisherman-casting-a-rod for Chris Beck (he likes to fish) before he moved into the starting rotation.

Honors

The Kennedy High baseball team has jumped from seventh to second in the USA Today national baseball poll. The Golden Cougars, who ended their season with a 14-game winning streak, are ranked third by Baseball America.

Scott Richardson, a former Cal State Northridge player, has been named the California League’s hitter of the week. Richardson, an outfielder for the San Bernardino Stampede, was 12 for 26 last week, including a five-for-five performance against Lake Elsinore.

Quotebook

“I watched the top players under so much pressure and it just turned my stomach. We were under no pressure because we weren’t supposed to make it.”

-- Crescenta Valley High and Valley College graduate Gail Castro, on qualifying for the U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team with partner Deb Richardson.

Things to Do

If you missed The Famous Chicken on Thursday night at the Hangar, you can catch him and also watch the JetHawks continue their first-half title chase Saturday night at the Diamond in Lake Elsinore. Game time is 7:05.

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Contributing: Mike Bresnahan, Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia.