Glendale Rolls as Pierce Is Rocked

The opposing coaches stood behind the portable batting practice screen, watching hitters rip line drives and fly balls toward the brilliant sky.

There were still nearly two hours before the game on Tuesday, so the men soaked in the sun and talked shop.

“[Our] games have literally been over by the third inning,” said one.

Said the other: “We are playing well, we really are.”

The coaches have known each other for years, but their experience with junior college baseball is vastly different.

Bob Lofrano, coach at Pierce College, runs a program that has been in the playoffs every season since he took over in 1991. Denny Barrett, in his first campaign at Glendale, inherited an outfit that hadn’t mustered a winning record in five years.

As they play Western State Conference Southern Division games today, one team is fighting for first place, the other to stay out of the basement.

Business as usual? Hardly.

“We’ve never had teams that have had so many one-sided losses as this team has,” Lofrano said.

The Brahmas, usually the ones handing out the punishment, are mostly on the receiving end this season. They have been hammered, 27-4, 19-1, 13-3. Their pitchers throw the ball and duck.

“Let’s face it,” Lofrano said. “At this level, when the starter gets knocked out in the third [inning], it’s run for cover.”

Or the aspirin bottle.

In his years with the Brahmas, Lofrano has won three WSC titles and has never fielded a team that finished lower than second place. Often slow starters, the Brahmas got off to a 6-8 record this season and Lofrano wasn’t alarmed.

They are 10-15 overall and 3-6 in the division, four games behind defending champion and front-runner Canyons, and Lofrano can’t see the light.

“I’m not as optimistic as I’ve been in past years,” he said.

Barrett doesn’t have other seasons with the Vaqueros to compare, other than what he heard about them, which wasn’t always good.

He was coaching at Chaminade High while Glendale struggled the past few seasons, never rising above .500 since 1991.

When he was hired in July to coach the Vaqueros, Barrett started working quickly to rescue the program.

“Our focus was to blend [the players] into a team,” Barrett said. “We did a lot of stuff together in the fall, on the field and off the field, and I think it’s paid off.”

There were mandatory fund-raisers, pizza nights, work parties to upgrade the team’s clubhouse at Stengel Field--to build camaraderie and togetherness. Those looking out more for themselves than the team were shown the door.

“We let good athletes go because of their attitude,” Barrett said.

Those who stayed have helped turn the Vaqueros around. They are 17-8, 6-3 in division play, one game behind Canyons, a team they have defeated twice.

“The talent hasn’t changed, but it’s all mental,” Barrett said. “The guys have come in and they believe in themselves.”

Some of those guys are from schools to the west and north of Glendale that seldom, if ever, fed players to the Vaqueros. But Barrett was able to attract them and, at the same time, kept them from playing for rival programs.

“I was fortunate coming from Chaminade that many high school guys knew me,” Barrett said. “They are driving past Pierce and past Valley and they are not minding it.”

Especially when they are beating those teams. But Tuesday at Pierce, Glendale came up short against the Brahmas, 9-7, like so many times in previous seasons.

This time, however, it was called an upset.