He Can Dish and He Can Set the Table

Jerome Payton, who point guard for the Palmdale High boys’ basketball team, sparks the baseball team as well.

Payton plays shortstop and bats leadoff for the Golden League leaders and is hitting .484, has scored 30 runs and stolen 30 bases in 31 attempts.

“He’s swinging the bat good and really doing the job,” Coach Kent Bothwell said.

In the winter, he wheels and deals. In the spring, he wheels and steals.

Payton, a 6-foot, 170-pound senior, scored 10.6 points per game to help lead the Palmdale basketball team to a 24-4 record and the Southern Section Division I-A semifinal.

He was a second-team selection on The Times’ All-Valley team.

He’s been a gem on the diamond too, and last Friday had a near-perfect game. Payton went five for five, scored five runs, stole three bases and drove in five runs.

GOLDEN LEAGUE

Making a Pitch

Antelope Valley Coach Ed T’Sas has been singing the praises of center fielder Chris Tapia, hoping to catch the attention of professional scouts.

“He’s as good as any center fielder we’ve seen,” T’Sas said. “He does all those things that you’re supposed to do as a hitter--hit for power, hit to all fields, run and bunt.

“People always talk about the pitchers up here, (Quartz Hill’s Roger) Worley and (Palmdale’s David) Glick, but we’ve got hitters, too. Whenever a scout calls me, I tell him Tapia’s our man.”

Tapia has had an excellent senior season, leading the Antelopes to contention for the league lead, and hitting .442.

He also has 18 extra-base hits, including 10 doubles and six triples.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

Share the Victory Stand

Newbury Park second baseman Shawn Adams hit a home run in the top of the eighth inning to beat Simi Valley the first time the teams met this season, and he had several chances to be the hero when the teams played again last week.

Adams came to bat in a tie game with runners at first and second and one out in the fifth, but grounded into a double play. He also led off the eighth and 10th innings, but failed to reach base both times.

Catcher Jeff Bennett, who hit a game-winning home run in the top of the seventh to defeat Thousand Oaks, won the Simi Valley game with a two-run shot in the bottom of the 10th. Newbury Park won, 9-7.

“I was mad,” Adams said. “I wanted to be the only one (who had beaten) Simi. Bennett already had Thousand Oaks. I wanted Simi.”

*

Newbury Park senior Keith Smith put on a throwing clinic before the Simi Valley game.

Playing center field during warm-ups for the benefit of about two dozen scouts who had come to see his arm, Smith threw several one-hop bullets to the plate.

Tough act to follow.

“It’s not really fair to the right fielders to have to throw after that,” Coach Gary Fabricius said.

*

Sophomore Nathan Kaup continued to be the key to Camarillo’s run into playoff contention after an 0-4 league start.

The Scorpions won five consecutive league games entering the week. During the five-game streak, Kaup hit .470 and made no errors at shortstop. On the mound, he was 3-0 with a 1.23 earned-run average.

*

Westlake Coach Rich Herrera is puzzled by what’s happened to his team, which seemed to be peaking after it won a tournament in Las Vegas in early April. But the Warriors lost eight of 10 games after returning from Las Vegas.

“It’s so frustrating,” Herrera said. “We’ve tried different things and the outcome is basically the same.”

WEST VALLEY LEAGUE

Forging Ahead

As expected, senior Randy Wolf has carried El Camino Real this season.

Entering the week, the left-hander had completed each of his nine starts and was 8-1 with a 1.11 ERA. But there is more.

Last year’s City Section 4-A Division player of the year also leads the team in every hitting category: batting (.530, 26 for 49), doubles (four), triples (five), home runs (three) and RBIs (19).

He has done all this despite enduring the sudden death of his father, James, of a heart attack, on March 27.

“He’s carrying on,” Coach Mike Maio said. “Which is all you can do.”

*

Cleveland has a team ERA of 3.05. The Cavaliers, however, are 3-10.

Why?

“We can’t hit,” assistant Marty Siegel said. “Period.”

Entering the week, the team batting average was .241, the slugging percentage only .291.

Tony Williams leads the Cavaliers in RBIs with six. By contrast, eight players for hard-hitting Chatsworth have more RBIs.

MID-VALLEY LEAGUE

Save It

First-place Monroe held a 4-2 lead over Birmingham on Monday when Monroe Coach Kevin Campbell called upon hard-throwing ace Joel Zamudio in the seventh to put the game away.

While Zamudio (3-2) was looking to pick up his third save, the Braves had other ideas. Second-place Birmingham took advantage of Zamudio’s wildness (a walk and a hit batsman) and scored two earned runs on David Cohen’s two-run double in the seventh to tie it, 4-4.

Before his appearance, Zamudio, who walked four and hit three batters in six innings of relief, had pitched 28 innings without giving up an earned run.

Zamudio, who struck out nine, did not get the loss. Mike Perez, who started the game and was relieved in the fourth, returned to the mound in the 13th and in the 14th surrendered the game-winning hit to John Ransom.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

Hoover Vacuum Is Farver

Hoover was the first team to beat Crescenta Valley in a league game this season.

The 2-0 upset has served as a huge confidence booster for the Tornadoes (10-7, 9-3) who have won five of their last six games.

“They’re really coming together as a team,” Hoover Coach Bob Cooper said. “That win over (Crescenta Valley) really did a lot for us. It’s given us quite a boost.”

Senior shortstop Mike Farver has helped lead the team with exceptional defensive play, according to Cooper. Farver played second base last season and has adjusted to his new position.

“He’s been absolutely fabulous,” Cooper said. “In the last three games he’s been on fire. He’s made some incredible plays.”

EAST VALLEY LEAGUE

Duel in the Sun

Although there was disappointment in the Poly dugout after the Parrots’ 1-0 eight-inning loss to Sylmar Monday, there was also a few swollen chests, prideful that the Parrots proved they can play with Sylmar, the state’s sixth-ranked team according to Cal-Hi Sports.

“(Poly) won 12 straight (before facing Sylmar) and they have nothing to be ashamed of,” Poly Coach Chuck Schwal said. “They lost to a good team, but we did our job. You never want to lose, but when you do, you hope it’s to a good team.

“And you want to go out with your guns blazin’ and we did. We gave ‘em a good game.”

*

Monday’s Sylmar-Poly game brought back memories of years past, when the outcome of teams’ matchups would inevitably dictate which team won the league title.

It had been two years since the game between the two schools has been competitive. Sylmar was dominant in 1993, Poly prevailed in ’92.

Sylmar Coach Gary Donatella was happy to see the rivalry rekindled.

“This is why you practice all the time, for these games,” Donatella said. “(Poly) matured a lot since last year.”

CAMINO REAL LEAGUE

Playing the Lead

An ideal leadoff man: Bell-Jeff’s Josh Readman hit safely in 17 of the team’s first 19 games.

The junior left fielder and second baseman has multiple hits in six games and leads the team with a .415 batting average and .566 slugging percentage. He leads Bell-Jeff with 22 hits in 53 at-bats.

“That’s incredible for a leadoff guy,” coach Craig Sherwood said. “He’s the reason we’re doing so well lately. He has speed, power and consistency.”

Around the Leagues. . . .

* Antelope Valley freshman Kevin Barlow, the team’s starting third baseman, had seven hits in eight at-bats last week.

* Cleveland pitchers surrendered only one earned run in a recent four-game stretch. The team went 2-2.

* Chatsworth shortstop Bryan LaCour went six for eight last week to hike his average to .500. The Chancellors have won 13 consecutive games.

* In 97 plate appearances, Harvard-Westlake’s Jon Schaeffer has been hit by a pitch or drawn a walk 32 times. The Stanford-bound senior catcher is hitting .492, which gives him an on-base percentage of .690.

* Chaminade may have one of the Mission League’s best pitchers--sophomore Gabe Crecion. The 6-foot-4, 210-pound hurler has a 7-2 record and a 1.96 earned-run average. A couple of weeks ago Crecion’s fastball was clocked at 86 m.p.h. Not bad for a guy who just turned 16.

* Rio Mesa’s Charlie Boch was seven for 14 with 13 RBIs over a four-game stretch. “I wouldn’t want to face him right now if I were pitching,” Coach Richard Duran said.

* Rio Mesa baserunners have stolen 34 bases in 35 attempts.

* Royal shortstop Joel Mellinger had nine RBIs in two games last week.

* Faith Baptist pitcher Judd Granzow has 107 strikeouts in 53 1/3 innings.

* Van Nuys’ Yuri Cuervo went five for five in stolen bases against Monroe last week, increasing his season total to 15.

* Sylmar ace Carlos Velazco is 20-2 in the past two seasons.

Baseball Top 10

Rankings of Valley-area high schools by sportswriters of The Times:

Rk LW Team League W-L 1 1 Sylmar East Valley 21-3 2 2 Chatsworth West Valley 21-3 3 5 Poly East Valley 17-4 4 4 Newbury Park Marmonte 17-5 5 9 Hart Foothill 17-4 6 3 Crescenta Valley Pacific 13-5 7 6 Notre Dame Mission 15-5 8 8 Moorpark Frontier 17-3 9 10 Rio Mesa Channel 16-5 10 NR El Camino Real West Valley 16-4

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, Dana Haddad, Michael Lazarus and Paige A. Leech contributed to this notebook.