HIGH SCHOOL NOTEBOOK : Despite Wins, Worley Laments Letdowns

The Saugus High baseball team finds itself in a familiar position--alone atop the Golden League standings--entering today’s game at Quartz Hill, but all is not well among the Centurions.

Although Saugus (8-4, 4-1 in league play) has won seven of its past eight, Coach Doug Worley has been disappointed with the team’s inability to maintain leads late in games.

“We’re not putting teams away when we get the chance,” Worley said after Saugus defeated Palmdale, 11-10, Tuesday. “And our pitching isn’t shutting people down. I think their leadoff batter must have reached base in every inning today.”

That figure was actually five of seven, but Worley’s frustration was understandable.

Saugus had a 10-7 lead against Palmdale after six innings, but had to score a run in the bottom of the seventh to win, and the Centurions led Canyon, 12-4, last Friday, then held on for a 14-12 win.

“We seem to have letdowns when we get a lead,” Worley said. “We have done just enough to win the last two games, and that concerns me.”

Worley’s worries were compounded when junior shortstop Jayme Riggio, the team’s second-leading hitter (.436), suffered a hairline fracture of the right wrist in practice Monday. He did not play against Palmdale and is expected to be sidelined at least one more week.

Young marks: Rio Mesa senior Dmitri Young needs three hits today in a Channel League game at Oxnard to tie the state career record of 147, which was set by Redondo Beach’s Scott Davison from 1986-88.

Young, who is 144 for 289 (.498) in three-plus varsity seasons at Rio Mesa, needs only three doubles to tie the Southern Section record of 36, which was set by Mammoth’s Danny Paranick from 1986-89.

Needed break: The spring vacation hasn’t come too soon for Chatsworth and its all-or-nothing pitching staff.

After a 5-0 start in Northwest Valley Conference games, the Chancellors are 0-2-1 in their past three league games and spotty pitching is largely the culprit.

The staff earned-run average is a respectable 2.89, but Chatsworth pitchers have walked 77 in 97 innings. Chancellor pitchers also have recorded 91 strikeouts.

“It’s either strike ‘em out or walk ‘em,” said Coach Tom Meusborn, whose team is 9-5-1 overall. “There’s been no in between.”

Starting right-handers Mitch Root (2-1, 26 walks in 23 innings) and Doug Dean (2-2, 14 walks in 24 2/3 innings) both have struggled with their control, prompting Meusborn to consider looking elsewhere for help.

Brandon Nickens (2-1, 1.03 ERA and 12 walks in 20 1/3 innings) and Anthony Moreno (2-0, 3.37 ERA and 10 walks in 18 2/3 innings) lead the list of candidates.

“We’ve got five or six quality arms,” he said. “We might just run them in there until we find the right combination.”

Add break: Valley Pac-8 Conference baseball teams also embraced the spring break.

Four teams in the conference played six games in eight days, and three others played five games in that period, producing some very overworked pitchers.

Grant (6-8, 4-3), which was 2-4 last week, was one of the teams that played a makeup game, two conference games and three tournament games last week.

Add Grant: The rain in late March caused several problems for Lancer Coach Tom Lucero early this month, as he had to reschedule two conference games and survive last week with sick pitchers.

All four Grant pitchers came down with the flu and the illnesses lingered into the middle of last week. Although no one missed a game, Lucero was forced to use three pitchers to beat Canoga Park, 16-6.

“That’s why I threw three pitchers, because they’re all too weak to go the distance,” Lucero said.

Gaining notice: Royal junior Dave Landaker, who played left field last season, has moved to shortstop this season and already has caught the attention of professional scouts.

Scouts at last Friday’s game between Royal and Westlake were impressed with Landaker’s strong throwing arm, his soft hands, and size (6 feet).

“He’s a raw talent, but has tremendous tools,” one scout said.

Hairy situation: Westlake’s players and coaches resorted to growing goatees last week in an effort to halt the Warriors’ five-game losing streak. After a 9-7 loss to Royal in which Westlake right fielder Todd Preston lost two balls in the sun, resulting in four runs, Westlake Coach Rich Herrera said the goatees were gone.

“We’ve tried just about everything,” Herrera said. “We’ve asked guys to change undershirts, to wear the same things they did last year, everything.”

Last year the Warriors won 28 of 30 games and reached the semifinals of the Southern Section 5-A Division playoffs. Before Westlake ended its six-game skid with a 15-3 win over Agoura on Wednesday, Herrera was considering throwing a uniform on longtime Westlake teacher Harvey Allen, a popular figure who seldom misses a Warrior athletic event.

“Harvey is a great man, but I’m not sure that even he could help us,” Herrera said.

Add Allen: Allen continues to make the Warriors smile during hard times. Two years ago, when the Westlake football team was struggling through a 2-8 season, Allen turned to a bystander on the Westlake sideline during the national anthem.

“We always lose when they play this song,” he said with a grin.

Friday he was telling Mike Preston, Todd’s father, about how he is trying to persuade Todd to accompany Allen on a bungee-cord jump from a hot-air balloon. After Todd lost the two balls in the sun against Royal, however, Allen shook his head. “I’m not sure that Todd will want to use the bungee cord after this,” he said.

Getting it right: Calabasas catcher Keith Slettedahl went four for five against Fillmore last Friday in a 5-5 tie. So?

So Slettedahl, a natural right-handed hitter, did it from the left side. Coach Bob Wade said that Slettedahl began switch-hitting two weeks ago in a tournament game.

Facing Fillmore right-hander Anthony Chessani, Slettedahl displayed a nice little inside-out swing that landed him his big day.

Career change: It took several moments, but Oak Park Coach Scott Randles thought he noticed something peculiar about the umpire for the Eagles’ game against St. Bonaventure last week.

“I looked at him and thought I had seen him somewhere before,” Randles said.

He had. The umpire was Fred Williams, the football and baseball coach at Agoura High, for which Randles played in the late 1970s.

“I hadn’t seen him in 15 years. He said he wouldn’t help us because of our relationship, but he probably hurt us more,” Randles said, laughing. “His strike zone was a little high.”

Oak Park won, 16-12.

Catching on: Jeff Kadis of Burbank played catcher as a junior and moved to first base at the beginning of this season, but there is one position he always desired--pitcher. Coach Dave Johnson allowed Kadis to throw batting practice last year, but never in a game until Kadis proposed a challenge to face the team’s top six hitters.

“We set up the catcher and ran a regular game-type situation,” Johnson said. “He ate us for breakfast and since then he has been eating everybody else for breakfast. He can really throw strikes.”

Kadis (2-0), who has a 1.47 ERA in 14 1/3 innings, picked up a win against Hart earlier this season. It was not only Burbank’s first victory over Hart since 1984, it also snapped the Indians’ 16-game Foothill League winning streak.

Bean ball: Birmingham pitcher Adam Pomeranz (0-2) allowed six hits against Chatsworth on Saturday, but it wasn’t the hits or even the team’s four fielding errors that cost him most in a 7-2 loss--it was the bean balls. Pomeranz hit six batters, three of whom he had two strikes on. “It seems like after every bean, someone came up and got a hit to bring him in,” Coach Dave Contreras said.

Staff writers Steve Elling, Kirby Lee, Paige A. Leech, Brian Murphy, John Ortega and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.