Moorpark’s Bradley Covers a Lot of Ground in a Day

It was the night of Nov. 2 and George Machado’s emotions already were seesawing. His Hueneme High football team had just won its first game of the season but his infant daughter was in the hospital with jaundice.

Amid the locker room revelry, Machado was told that Freddie Bradley, Moorpark College’s star running back who had played for Machado at Hueneme, had been arrested that night.

According to Machado, Bradley had an outstanding parking ticket that had advanced to a warrant, and he was pulled over because his car was smoking. He ended up in Ventura County Jail, Machado said.

“Fred is a hell of a football player, but he doesn’t know . . . about cars,” Machado said. “He probably hadn’t put oil in it for four months.”

After checking on his daughter at the hospital, Machado called the jail but Bradley already had been bailed out.

Not wanting to bother anyone late at night, Bradley made a 10-mile walk from jail to Hueneme to look for Machado, with whom he lived. Bradley arrived about 2 a.m. and found Machado still there.

So what was Bradley doing later that day? Speeding, of course, but he was doing it on the football field. He ran for five touchdowns and 283 yards and scored a school single-game record 32 points in a 49-29 victory over Santa Barbara City.

Mistaken identity: If Sean Davis has a specialty, it is defense. In the past month, the Cal State Northridge junior guard has shut down Loyola-Chicago’s Keith Gailes and, along with teammates Keith Gibbs and David Keeter, held USC’s Harold Miner to a season-low eight points.

It is somewhat ironic then that on the streets of small-town USA, Davis has been mistaken for Laker guard Byron Scott, who is not known for his defense.

Never mind that Davis bears little facial resemblance to Scott. The problem is Davis’ apparel. When Davis wears his favorite Lakers jacket, people from Flagstaff, Ariz., to Bozeman, Mont., mistakenly have asked “Byron Scott” for his autograph.

On a holiday stroll in Bozeman, a group of about 30 youngsters followed Davis around city streets as Northridge teammates Andre Chevalier and Shelton Boykin egged them on, insisting that their bashful friend was indeed Scott.

Davis would not confirm or deny it to his admirers. He just told them that he had to go.

Even split: Cal Lutheran and USC played a doubleheader last Sunday about as evenly as possible. Each team scored a combined four runs on 10 hits with no errors and won a game.

USC won the first game, 4-3, but Cal Lutheran won the finale, 1-0, behind the pitching of Mike Clark and Steve Dempsey.

Cal Lutheran, which had defeated USC only once in eight previous meetings, might have swept the doubleheader were it not for Jeff Cirillo, a former Providence High standout.

Cirillo had three runs batted in, including the game-winner, in USC’s victory.

Cal Lutheran had not played USC since Rich Hill became Cal Lutheran coach four years ago, but the Kingsmen were not intimidated facing the Trojans at historic Dedeaux Field.

“We prepared for that,” Hill said. “We tried to take that feeling of astonishment away. We just made a decision to go in there and be the hunter and not the prey.”

In the Nick of time: The Canyons men’s basketball team has turned its season around, and part of the reason is Nick Sanderson’s improved play.

Like a baseball player on a salary drive, Sanderson, a sophomore, has picked up his play a notch in Western State Conference Southern Division competition and drawn recruiting interest from UC Irvine, Marquette and others.

Canyons was 10-11 and Sanderson was averaging 13.6 points a game on 36% field-goal shooting entering divisional play. Since then, Sanderson has averaged 22.0 points on 68% shooting to help Canyons vault into the race for the Southern Division championship.

“He’s really playing the way we felt he could play all year, and it makes us that much better a team,” Canyons Coach Lee Smelser said.

Call to duty: Mission lost starting shortstop Jose Gallegos after one game because he has been summoned to active duty in the Marines.

Gallegos, who will ship out for Okinawa, Japan, soon, is a member of the Marine reserves. He missed last season because of complications over his commitment and will miss this season and likely the next as well.

“They told him to plan on a year,” said Mission Coach John Klitsner, who coached Gallegos at Sylmar High. “He’s always welcome on any team I’m coaching.”

Mission earlier lost starting shortstop Mike Rogers to a season-ending shoulder surgery, and Gallegos’ departure has left the team even more shaken.

“It’s kind of close to home,” Klitsner said. “When a kid like this gets sent away and possibly to the war, it kind of puts it in perspective.”

Statwatch: Todd Bowser saved one of his best performances of the season for USC. Northridge’s 6-foot-7, 300-pound senior center did not miss a shot against the Trojans, making all four of his field-goal attempts and three free throws. Bowser finished with 11 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.

Familiar faces: It was like old home week after the Eastern Washington game last week as Northridge players and coaches visited with Rusty Smith, an Eastern Washington assistant who was part of CSUN’s coaching staff from 1983 until last summer.

Kyle Kerlegan and Percy Fisher greeted Eastern Washington’s other assistant coach, Darrell Barbour, a former AAU coach from the Bay Area where they grew up.

The Northridge coaching staff also visited with Eastern Washington development director Ran Railey, who was in charge of marketing, promotions and development at Northridge until the end of the last school year. Rocky Railey, CSUN’s former sports information director, also attended the game.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Theresa Munoz and Brendan Healey contributed to this notebook.