Crescenta Valley Treasuring Its Prized Transfers

What a windfall.

Last week, Adam and Brock Jacobsen enrolled in Coach John Goffredo’s off-season basketball class at Crescenta Valley High after the brothers’ family moved from Glendora to La Crescenta.

Adam (6-foot-3), who will be a senior in the fall, was a two-time All-Southern Section guard at Glendora and a two-time most valuable player of the Baseline League. He is tied for the Southern Section lead with 288 three-point baskets and should be a top NCAA Division I prospect.

Brock (6-3), who will be a sophomore in the fall, was MVP of Glendora’s freshman team. “We’re really excited about them,” Goffredo said.

The Jacobsens have ties to Crescenta Valley. Their mother is a Crescenta Valley graduate, and Goffredo coached the brothers’ uncle, Matt Anderson, in 1979.

The family’s impact could be long-lasting. Adam and Brock have two other brothers, one in sixth grade, one in kindergarten.

INTO THE BLUE

In golfing parlance, when a player whacks a ball out-of-bounds, it is time to reload. Jason Gore of Hart has done it again and again and again.

Gore, who will attend Arizona on scholarship next fall, finished second in the Foothill League individual tournament as a freshman, earning a red medal. The winner received a blue medal.

As a sophomore and junior, Gore also finished second in the league tournament. Finally, Gore won the title, recording rounds of 74 on Tuesday and 73 on Wednesday at Wilson Golf Course in Griffith Park to prevail by eight shots.

“I think he decided he was tired of the red medals and wanted to get that blue one,” Coach Dennis Ford said.

WHO WON?

Talking with Poly baseball Coach Jerry Cord after his team overcame a six-run deficit in the seventh inning to post an 8-7 victory over Grant on Tuesday, it was difficult to tell that Poly was the winner.

After Parrot reliever Rey Gutierrez struck out Justin Howard with the bases loaded to end the game, the team mobbed Gutierrez near the mound and celebrated for several minutes.

Cord, however, was anything but celebratory after the East Valley League victory. He was downright angry. “Why we didn’t come to play after working 20 weeks to play a game like this for first place, and then play six innings like that, I don’t understand it,” said Cord, whose team moved into a first-place tie with Grant.

Poly committed an uncharacteristic five errors.

“We were terrible the first six innings,” Cord said. “We’re not going to go to Dodger Stadium (site of the City Section 4-A Division championship game) playing like that.”

STEALING SPIRITS

When Paraclete players get aboard, don’t expect them to stick around first base for long.

The Spirits average nearly eight stolen-base attempts a game and have a success rate of better than 90%. Paraclete has 93 stolen bases in 103 attempts.

Drew Gonzales leads with 15 stolen bases. Dave Murray has 13, Larry King 12 and Frank Stanley 10.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

John Aguilar, who leads Hart in batting average (.471), runs batted in (32), triples (four), doubles (four), hits (32) and runs (26), moved into the lead in a more memorable category Tuesday by blasting his eighth home run--a school single-season record.

Aguilar, a senior shortstop, eclipsed the record of seven, shared by Casey Burrill (1989), Jim Bonds (1987) and Tad Venger (1977).

Bonds, more widely known as one of Hart’s best quarterbacks, played football for UCLA and is playing baseball for the Bruins. Burrill is the designated-hitter for USC.

However, among the trio who hit seven, Venger, a resident of the Santa Clarita Valley, might be the nearest and dearest to Hart Coach Bud Murray.

Said Murray: “He’s my nephew.”

NOT HIS FAVORITE

Walt Steele sounded exhausted after his Montclair Prep baseball team returned from a 13-3 victory at Maranatha on Tuesday night.

“I hate that place,” he said of the Sierra Madre school.

Could be that Steele recalls Montclair Prep’s last Alpha League loss, suffered at Maranatha midway through the 1990 season. In that game, Russell Ortiz, then a sophomore, suffered one of his two career losses.

Despite the win Tuesday behind an 11-strikeout performance by Ortiz (7-0), Steele was less than thrilled with having to play on the Alpha League’s only lighted field. Maranatha plays its home games at 7 p.m.

“We usually play low-scoring, close games there,” Steele said before the game. “In the middle innings, you don’t hit because you can’t see. You either have to score early or score late. It’s tough.”

Not Tuesday. The Mounties scored three in the third, three in the fourth and five in the fifth.

David Coulson, Vince Kowalick and staff writers Steve Elling, Paige A. Leech and T.C. Porter contributed to this notebook.