Sistilli Gets Early Jump on Competition

There are certain things teenagers rarely volunteer to do, such as taking out the trash or waking up before 7 a.m.

Scott Sistilli is a 17-year-old senior at Mission Hills Alemany who would gladly sleep until noon, if given the option. On Sundays, he turns off the ringer on his phone and is like a bear in hibernation.

But four days a week since May, he has been rising at 5:30 a.m. to lift weights at the school weight room. He has two alarms that go off -- one sounds at 5:30 and the backup at 5:45 -- just to make sure he makes it on time. He keeps telling himself it’s for a good cause.

“I know this will make me better, this will make me stronger, this will make me improve,” he said.

Those who have seen Sistilli pitch in the last month already understand the impact hard work has made on his skills.

Mark Gubicza, a former pitcher for the Kansas City Royals and coach at Mission League rival West Hills Chaminade, clocked Sistilli hitting 92 mph on a radar gun this winter.

“He had really good stuff,” Gubicza said.

Only two years ago, Sistilli was a 5-foot-11, 140-pound sophomore throwing 84 mph. Now, he’s a 6-0, 180-pound senior right-hander who has signed with Cal State Northridge and seems ready to emerge as a dominant pitcher.

“He was skin and bones before,” assistant coach Tim Browne said. “He’s got a fastball that he can throw above the belt.”

Browne was the one who asked Alemany players if they wanted to join him for early-morning lifting sessions last May. Only two volunteered, Sistilli and junior pitcher Ryan Platt.

“A lot of people tell me I look tired during the day,” Sistilli said. “I’d prefer the workouts be at noon, but I have to do what I have to do.”

Sistilli was 7-1 with a 1.90 earned-run average last season when Alemany shared the Mission League title with Chaminade. The added strength should make him a better pitcher. He gave up three runs and struck out seven in five innings in a 6-4 loss to Calabasas on Saturday.

“I can feel my arm is stronger,” he said. “I won’t break down this year. I can feel my legs when I push off [the mound]. I’ve changed some of my form and I’m using my whole body.”

Alemany Coach Randy Thompson has recognized since Sistilli was a sophomore that he might be the Indians’ best pitcher since Joe Rosselli, who was a second-round draft choice of the San Francisco Giants in 1990.

“It’s good to see his hard work,” Thompson said. “When other players see his improvement, they think, ‘Hey, you do improve.’ He’s a prime example of what hard work does.”

Thompson gave Sistilli the nickname “meat” because he reminded him of the promising young pitcher in the movie “Bull Durham.” The only problem was, Sistilli had never seen the movie and didn’t understand what his coach meant.

“He comes up to me the day before a game, ‘What’s up meat?’ ” Sistilli recalled. “I said, ‘Are you saying I throw slow?’ He goes, ‘Have you seen ‘Bull Durham’? Go rent it.’

“So me and my parents watch it and in the first five minutes there’s a sex scene and my mom goes, ‘What’s this?’ ‘I don’t know, my coach told me to rent it.’ My mom had to fast forward.”

His mother, Maureen, is just pleased that her son is growing up.

“He’s not a morning person,” she said. “He realized certain responsibilities come with trying to get to the next level, and he’s willing to make sacrifices, and that’s a showing of maturity.”

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When senior outfielder Josh Cliffords of Woodland Hills El Camino Real hit a home run in his varsity debut last week, then added a double and single, it was proof he had completed a remarkable comeback.

Since he was 9, Cliffords has broken his right arm six different times. It forced him to sit out large parts of his freshman and sophomore seasons.

When he was giving high-fives with his right arm after his home run, people were probably holding their breath.

“I try not to think about it,” said Cliffords, whose older brother, Woody, helped El Camino Real win the 1998 City Championship.

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There were some impressive opening-week performances in high school baseball:

* Steve Taylor of San Pedro, Matt Ware of Quartz Hill and Zech Zinicola of Riverside Arlington threw no-hitters.

* Villa Park’s pitching duo of senior Steven Johns and junior Mark Trumbo each threw shutouts.

* UC Irvine-bound first baseman Tim Stewart of Santa Ana Mater Dei hit three home runs and had eight runs batted in.

* Junior Steve Susdorf of Newhall Hart hit a pinch-hit grand slam in his first varsity at-bat on the same day his older brother, Bill, hit a three-run home run for UCLA against USC.

* All six Foothill League teams went 2-0 in tournaments.

The new pitching coach at Calabasas, two-time Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen, saw his pitchers go 2-0.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.