HIGH SCHOOLS

Gut check: Alan Eberhart was home Wednesday night, but couldn’t answer the phone.

The Crescenta Valley football coach was actually in bed for 19 hours with food poisoning from an unlikely source.

Cookies.

Eberhart and two other family members were sickened by supermarket cookies, but he got up in time for football practice Thursday.

“I told the [team] not too long ago that football coaches don’t get sick and don’t ever miss practice,” said Eberhart, whose Falcons play Muir today. “Looking back, I guess I shouldn’t have said that.”

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A little luck: There are good luck charms. And there are babies.

Simi Valley girls’ volleyball Coach Leslie Peterson is finding out that the two go hand-in-hand.

Peterson gave birth to Page Addison Peterson on Oct. 18. Eleven days later, Page attended her first volleyball match. The Pioneers swept Thousand Oaks. The players’ parents want Page to attend every remaining match.

“They think she’s a good-luck charm,” said Leslie, who coaches during matches but has turned over practice duties to her assistant coaches.

“She sleeps through the whole game. At the very end, she wakes up.”

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Crying wolf: Was that really the Van Nuys High football team on the field during season-opening losses to Palisades and Culver City, when it was outscored, 78-28?

Not even Coach Mark Pomerantz knows.

“We started off against Pali and only had six or seven guys that knew what was going on,” he said.

The Wolves (4-3, 3-1 in the Valley Pac-8 Conference) have won four of five games and allowed only 21 points in a loss to Sylmar. “That’s the first time in my five years here we’ve held them to less than forty,” Pomerantz said.

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Triathlon: Unlikely as it would appear, tonight’s Tri-Valley League game between Fillmore (2-5, 0-2) and Oak Park (1-6, 0-1) will almost certainly determine a playoff berth.

The Southern Section Division X playoffs will include four teams from four leagues: Tri-Valley, Frontier, Camino Real and Olympic.

Before this year’s divisional realignment, three Tri-Valley League teams qualified.

After tonight, Fillmore’s final league game is against second-place Bishop Diego (5-1-1, 1-1), which pummeled Oak Park, 47-6, last Friday.

Oak Park closes with St. Bonaventure (6-1, 2-0) and Carpinteria (2-5, 1-0), teams which beat Fillmore by a combined 53-16.