Pioneers Strike It Rich on Mound With Diamond in Rough

When right-hander Adam Springston transferred to Simi Valley High from Channel Islands last fall, Pioneer baseball Coach Mike Scyphers wasn’t sure just what he had.

“When we first saw him, you had no idea where the ball was going out of his hand,” Scyphers said.

Springston seems to have straightened things out. He has a 4-0 record with an 0.88 earned-run average. In 24 innings, he’s given up nine hits and struck out 25.

“He’s a diamond in the rough,” Scyphers said.

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Small world: In 1979, Pepperdine advanced to the College World Series in Omaha.

Doing the catching for Pepperdine was Chuck Fick, whose little brother Robert, age 5, was the team’s batboy.

Cal State Fullerton won the Series title. One of the Titan assistants was a skinny guy named Bill Kernen.

Sixteen years later, Kernen is coach at Northridge and Robert Fick is one of his catchers.

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Relatively speaking: The 18th Southwestern Intercollegiate Championship held this week at North Ranch Country Club featured a couple of guys with ties to famous folks.

Playing for Arizona State was Larry Barber, whose father, Miller, has won a few bucks on the PGA and Senior PGA tours. Playing for Colorado was Steve Irwin, whose father, Hale, is one of the most-consistent players in PGA history.

There’s more from the relative front. Chad Wright of Ventura plays for USC while brother Justin plays for San Jose State. Brothers Scott and Chris Johnson play for Arizona State and USC, respectively.

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Murphy’s law: As if things weren’t going badly enough for the Buena High baseball team (4-5, 1-3 in Channel League play), the Bulldogs’ game Tuesday at Santa Barbara High was delayed for 30 minutes when the sprinklers came on and a janitor had to be found to shut them off.

Then Buena went out, made seven errors, and lost, 10-3.

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Mop-up men: Northwest Valley Conference baseball coaches will learn quickly about each team’s pitching depth.

Rain last week washed out all but one league game. City Section rules mandate makeup games must be played on the next available Monday. So even though most teams could have made up Thursday’s games on Friday, they weren’t allowed to.

Consequently, conference teams will be playing three games in each of the next two weeks instead of the customary two.

With pitchers limited to 10 innings a week, third-string pitchers may play a pivotal role.

Quotebook

“The kids love it. I write a lot and point.”

--Buena High softball Coach Sharon Coggins, who all but lost her voice as the result of a cold.

Stats

A bad knee kept Andy Shaw out of baseball last year, costing him an entire season of eligibility at Cal State Northridge.

Obviously, the rust is hurting him. In his first 81 at-bats, the junior designated hitter has 36 runs batted in, 10 doubles and eight home runs. He is batting .386. All are team highs.

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Longshots: Maybe the answer for the shooters on the Northridge women’s basketball team was to back up.

Northridge shot 37.6% (562 of 1,495) for the year, but made 34.5% (89 of 258) from three-point range.

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League leader: Cal State Northridge forward Mike Dorsey finished first in the American West Conference in field-goal percentage (58.0%), first in rebounding (7.1), third in blocked shots (21) and fourth in scoring (12.7).

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Foul play: Close game in crunch time? Need to gain possession of the ball? A good idea last season in the AWC was to foul somebody. Anybody.

Only three men’s players in the AWC shot better than 75% from the free-throw line: Ryan Martin (84.8%) and Pete Micelli (76.1) of Northridge and Reggie Ingram of Southern Utah (82.5).

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For the record: The Master’s College men’s basketball team set school records by shooting 51.8% from the field and 74.2% from the free-throw line.

Leo Gorauskas, the Mustangs’ 6-foot-9 sophomore center, set a standard for best field-goal percentage in a season by making 216 of 317 shots, 68.2%. Mike Penberthy, the club’s 6-3 sophomore point guard, established a career high from the foul line, making 110 of 121 free-throw attempts, 90.9%.

Things to Do

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda and coaches Bill Russell, Reggie Smith and Dave Wallace will provide coaching instruction and game tips Saturday at Sunrise Little League at 12:30 p.m.

Also attending will be Joe Ferguson, a former Dodger player and coach. Information: 818-344-6195.

Racing at Saugus Speedway officially begins Saturday at 7 p.m. Scheduled main events include the late models, pure stock and Grand American Modified. A new attraction, “Things That Go Bump in the Night,” will make its debut.

* Compiled by Mike Hiserman. Contributing: Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Michael Lazarus, John Ortega, Bryan Rodgers.