Loss Is Educating to Riordan

Matt Riordan sat in a Reno hotel for two days last week watching the rain outside his window, his hot bat cooling off in the corner of the hotel room.

“I’m just vegging out and bonding with the team,” said Riordan, a Westlake-Royal Oak outfielder whose team was playing in the annual Josh Anderson Memorial tournament. “It’s boring. If you’re not 21 [and not playing ball], there’s nothing to do in Reno.”

Except, perhaps, for thinking about what might have been. Riordan, a recent Westlake High graduate, was supposed to be playing top-level amateur baseball for a summer league team based in Honolulu.

But that was contingent on his being able to accept a scholarship to the University of San Francisco. The offer was revoked because Riordan’s final grade-point average at Westlake was substandard.

Riordan just missed the minimum 3.0 GPA requirement.

“I needed two Bs and an A in my three core classes, and I got an A, a B and a C,” he said. “It came to the finals. I was up every night. I was trying the whole semester. I just fell short.”

Receiving the bad news was difficult enough, but then Riordan had to notify Dons’ Coach Rich Hill, who was excited to have signed the 6-foot-1, 175-pound slugger.

“He was pretty upset,” Riordan said. “It was like losing a ballgame by one run. He was hurt.”

Riordan was discouraged too, after a teacher denied his request for extra-credit work in hopes he could raise his grade in economics.

But Riordan doesn’t blame anyone. “I really don’t feel it was a setback,” he said. “It happened for a reason.”

The recent turn of events has done nothing to slow Riordan. Before Westlake-Royal Oak departed for last week’s tournament, Riordan was embarrassing pitchers. He is batting .509 and leads the area with seven home runs and 35 runs batted in.

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Antelope Valley South pitcher Sean Douglass stands 6-7, wears size-17 shoes and casts a large shadow on summer afternoons in Lancaster, especially when he is on the mound.

Douglass, a budding prospect, put on an impressive display of pitching and hitting last week in a 3-2 victory over Palmdale. Douglass, who has a 1.89 earned-run average, threw a five-hitter and did not allow a run until two out in the seventh. He also hit two home runs and drove in all of his team’s runs.

“There were about seven scouts here to see him, and he didn’t disappoint anybody,” Coach Chad Eberhardt said. “And that’s rare to get scouts up here for a legion game.”

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Hart High Coach Bud Murray might want to consider using pitcher Bobby Graves as a starter. Graves, a left-hander who has been a varsity closer for three seasons, has a 5-0 record and 49 strikeouts while allowing only eight hits in 28 innings for Santa Clarita South. His 0.75 ERA is fifth best in the area. . . .

Palmdale’s Kevin Harmon entered the week with 24 hits, 12 of them doubles. . . . Jason Robitaille of Sunland-Tujunga has thrown a perfect game, doing it in his first legion start shortly after dedicating the season to his father, Gerry, who died in February. Robitaille, who took a year off from baseball after graduating from Village Christian High in 1995, has a 4-1 record and 1.48 ERA. . . .

Central Valley entered the week 14-4, thanks to a stingy pitching staff. Jesus Carranza has a 5-0 record, 0.40 ERA and 37 strikeouts in 35 2/3 innings. Jared Mills is 3-1 with an 0.56 ERA and Mike Schultz is 3-1 with a 1.80 ERA. The team will be without Schultz until the end of July because the right-hander will be pitching in an international tournament in Australia.