Herman, Canchola Out of Running

Dusty Herman and Elaine Canchola of Nordhoff High will not run in the rescheduled evening portion of the Arcadia Invitational track and field meet at Arcadia High on April 25 because they will be attending the school prom.

Herman, runner-up in the 1977 West region boys’ cross-country championships, was entered in the boys’ 1,600 meters, and Canchola, the 1997 state Division IV girls’ cross-country champion, was entered in the girls’ 1,600 at Arcadia last Saturday before it was postponed because of rain.

SOFTBALL

Busy, busy, busy: Saugus, which will have played 12 games during the first 41 days of the season, will play six games in six days beginning today with a Foothill League showdown with Hart.

You won’t hear Centurion Coach Ron Hilton complain.

“Let’s quit practicing, play a lot of games, find out what we’re doing wrong and figure it all out at the end of the season,” he said.

BASEBALL

Cashing in: Sylmar Coach Gary Donatella and his wife hit jackpots in Las Vegas. Each took home $625 from video poker machines during their trip for the Bishop Gorman tournament.

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Yardsticks: The St. Bonaventure baseball field, located next to the intersection of the 101 and 126 freeways in Ventura, is certainly a pitcher’s park.

Since it opened in 1988, only four home runs have been hit out of the park, Seraph Coach Dennis Johnson said.

The most recent blasts to leave the yard came this year when St. Bonaventure’s Pat Devericks and Oxnard’s Eric Fong did the trick. The others were Seraph Wayne McPhail in 1989 and an unidentified Malibu player in 1996.

The field has a 12-foot high fence that is 345 feet from home plate down the lines and 491 feet to center field. With the field’s proximity to the ocean, the air tends to be heavy and a breeze often blows in from right field.

Inside-the-park home runs are more common. John McNamara, a 1993 graduate of St. Bonaventure, had four in his career.

TENNIS

Name game: The player with the longest name in the region? Ted Enchawadechasilp of Grant.