Frazee pays for trying to lend a helping hand

Erik Boal

GLENDALE -- o7 Odds and ends from the local high school boys’

volleyball scene:f7

Did someone say Murphy’s Law?: An already long season is seeming to

grow more so with each passing day for St. Francis High boys’ volleyball

Coach Mark Frazee, who saw his squad drop to 8-6, 3-5 in Mission League

with Tuesday night’s four-game loss at Encino Crespi.

But the pain of the Golden Knights’ third four-game setback in its

past four outings -- including two in league -- might pale in comparison

to the constant throbbing Frazee has been experiencing in his left hand

as a result of an injury sustained in an April 9 loss at home to Mission

Hills Alemany.

Frazee, who was performing his usual pre-match routine of laying a

strip of white athletic tape underneath the net at the St. Francis gym to

protect both teams from possibly landing on the metal circles (which

cover the holes for the volleyball poles), paid for his efforts dearly as

a player landed on his left hand.

“All of the sudden I look up and see this foot on my hand and right

away I knew something was wrong,” said Frazee, who didn’t discover the

break in his left index finger until the following night when the

discomfort reached the point where he was forced to take a trip to the

emergency room.

“Then I had to [be a line judge] for the [junior varsity] match with

my bleeding hand wrapped in a towel the entire time.

“Then we come out and have Alemany beat in the third game, but we

couldn’t get a point. We had the door closed, but we’d have a silly

hitting error here and a bad pass there, and we let it get away.”

After splitting the first two games, St. Francis led Alemany, 13-7, in

the third, but surrendered the final eight points of the game and then

experienced a meltdown in the fourth, falling, 15-6.

“We haven’t been able to beat [Alemany] for years and I think it came

down to a leadership thing,” said Frazee, who is still without junior

outside hitter Scott Smiland, who has been sidelined since March 20 with

of all injuries, a broken left index finger.

“We got comfortable in the third game and it cost us.”

Frazee, however, is far from comfortable.

Following Tuesday’s 12-15, 15-5, 15-2, 15-9 loss at Crespi, St.

Francis is in danger of not earning an at-large berth in the CIF Southern

Section Division IV playoffs.

An unfortunate letdown: Immediately following his team’s emotional

four-game victory April 9 against three-time defending Santa Fe League

champion L.A. Cathedral, Flintridge Prep boys’ volleyball Coach Sean

Beattie told his team that it could ill-afford a letdown similar to the

one it did last season following its victory against the Phantoms.

After beating Cathedral in five games at home in the first of two

meetings between the teams last season, the Rebels (11-3, 7-1 in league)

did a 180-degree turn and lost to Pasadena La Salle in five games,

spoiling their chances for an outright league crown.

But despite Beattie’s efforts to prevent a similar fate for this

year’s group, which features three players -- Will Birnie, Matt Bosch and

Prescott Gadd -- that were on the 2001 team that finished one match

behind Cathedral in second place, Flintridge Prep picked the wrong time

to play its worst match of the season.

The Rebels played host to L.A. Salesian -- a team they had swept in

their season-opener -- and lost, 15-9, 15-10, 10-15, 15-12, making the

league race a lot tighter than Beattie would have liked entering

Flintridge Prep’s final four matches.

“The first thing I told them after Cathedral is that this is only one

match and that if they’re going to be on cloud nine for a week they

better think again,” said Beattie, who, despite the loss, still has his

squad ahead of Cathedral, La Salle and Salesian, all of which have two

losses.

“But if there is one good thing that did come out of the loss is that

they all played bad at the same time. Hopefully they got it all out of

their systems.”

Flintridge Prep -- which swept St. Genevieve on Tuesday -- will need

to wipe its slate clean entering the home stretch of the regular season,

which features Daniel Murphy today at home, followed by important road

matches against La Salle on Tuesday and Cathedral on May 2.

“The ideal situation entering the Cathedral match is to be playing for

no worse than a share of the league title,” Beattie said.

Ending the speculation: After considering a number of schools on the

West Coast, La Canada High senior middle blocker Greg Gaudino finally

ended the suspense Wednesday, informing the News-Press that he will be

attending USC in the fall.

Gaudino, regarded as the area’s best individual talent, will look to

reverse the Trojans’ fortunes after a 6-22 campaign this past season.