Prep Rally: Time to debate baseball’s player of the year

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. My name is Eric Sondheimer. There are two weeks left in the high school baseball season. Who deserves consideration for player of the year?

Having MVP seasons

The competition is wide open, which means the playoffs, as usual, should determine who separates themselves. Here are some candidates having influential seasons.

Justin Lee, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame: The ace of the 20-2 Knights worked on cutting down his walks to make his fastball in the 90s even more effective and it’s worked. He’s 6-0 with a 1.51 ERA and 65 strikeouts in 41-2/3 innings while giving up only 23 hits.

Ralphy Velazquez, Huntington Beach: The first baseman/catcher remains one of the most respected hitters in the Southland and is on his way to becoming a high MLB draft pick. He has power and consistency and delivers in the clutch for a team that had a 15-game winning streak.

Collin Clarke, Santa Margarita: Seemingly arising out of nowhere, Clarke keeps delivering one top pitching performance after another against top teams. He throws strikes and stays calm under pressure while continuing to develop.

Chad Gurnea, Garden Grove Pacifica: At 7-2 with an 0.40 ERA, 79 strikeouts and only nine walks in 52 innings, Gurnea is gearing up to be one tough roadblock to get past in the playoffs.

Justin Santiago, Bonita: All he does is win. He’s 6-0 with a 1.01 ERA and has 60 strikeouts in 48-2/3 innings while surrendering 24 hits.

Diego Velazquez, Crespi: Only a sophomore, Velazquez continues to be quite a two-way contributor with a .426 batting average while going 3-0 on the mound with an 0.66 ERA for a team that could contend for a Division 2 championship.

Gavin Taylor, Birmingham: The senior is gearing up for another City Section playoff run with a .423 batting average, two home runs and 14 RBIs.

Nick Allred, La Serna: He’s been doing everything right for 20-2 La Serna, collecting 27 hits and compiling a .519 batting average with 17 RBIs.

Tanner Mahon, Campbell Hall: Talk about doing everything you can to help your team go 15-2-1 — that’s Mahon. At the plate, he has 28 hits, three home runs and 28 RBIs. As a pitcher, he’s 5-0 and has allowed no earned runs in 38 innings.

Noah Andrunas, Gahr: He’s 6-1 with a 1.01 ERA for a team on a 14-game winning streak.

Garfield gets new field

It was standing-room only, a throng of Garfield High students bundled in hoodies and backpacks lining the walkway behind their new diamond. Some climbed up on an outcrop a couple feet behind the bleachers, gripping the fence behind them to steady themselves. Some gathered on the football stadium’s bleachers behind the center-field fence, peering across newly sodded swaths of grass.

For years, this was impossible. Garfield’s baseball games, often at East Los Angeles College, were watched by a smattering of parents in lawn chairs and no peers. There was never a home field, so students hardly ever made it to games, and community members such as Irene Maldonado, who ran the snack bar at “home games,” had to lug boxes of food to various parks around Los Angeles.

“Now we have this humongous crowd, which is so awesome,” Maldonado said Thursday night from a snack bar behind the home–plate fence that offered chili dogs and nachos. “Our kids don’t have to go anywhere. They’re here. It’s local. It’s our home, you know?”

Here’s the report on Garfield winning its first game on its new field and the opponent happened to be rival Roosevelt.

Baseball rewind

It was quite a week for Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, which rallied from a 5-0 deficit in the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs to defeat Huntington Beach 8-6 in the championship game of the South Division of the Boras Classic. Here’s the report.

Outfielder Ryan Limerick called the rally “the best two-out rally I’ve been a part of.”

Jackson Freeman of Tesoro went seven for 11 with four home runs in a South Coast League sweep of Mission Viejo. He had nine RBIs.

Pitcher Josh Hickey of Yucaipa has given up two hits or fewer in his last three starts.

Derek Turner of Newbury Park is making a bid to be the top player in Ventura County. He’s hitting .358 with 22 stolen bases and is 3-1 on the mound, having given up no runs in 28 innings.

Among big series this week: Mater Dei vs. Santa Margarita; JSerra vs. Servite; Villa Park vs. El Dorado; Granada Hills vs. El Camino Real; Sun Valley Poly vs. North Hollywood.

Here’s the link to this week’s top 25 rankings by The Times.

Softball

Huntington Beach (19-4) won the Big West tournament championship, knocking off Oaks Christian 8-3 in the championship game. Zoe Prystajko is having an MVP season. She has hit nine home runs and is a standout pitcher, having struck out 18 last week in a 1-0 win.

Norco won a key Big VIII League showdown with Eastvale Roosevelt. It took eight innings to decide, and Norco won 7-6 on a walk-off from Alyssa Hovermale.

Junior Aleena Garcia of Whittier Christian hit three home runs in a game.

No. 1 Los Alamitos and No. 4 Huntington Beach are scheduled to meet Tuesday at Huntington Beach.

Here’s this past week’s top 20 rankings from CalHiSports.com.

New commissioner

The Southern Section Executive Committee announced that Riverside King principal Mike West will be the replacement for Rob Wigod as the next commissioner of the Southern Section. Here’s a look at West’s background.

What should be the new commissioner’s priorities? What issues must he deal with? What are the expectations?

Here’s my column calling on the next commissioner to “protect those who follow the rules.”

Rain, go away

Aaron Beltran can play baseball. He’s a “unique talent” at Panorama High, coach Cullen Haywood said.

But last Monday, Beltran could not play. He had no pants.

With that simple confession to Haywood — he’d forgotten his baseball pants — the circus set off. Here was the coach, trying to sew together a team four hours before a game against Granada Hills Kennedy, and his best pitcher had no pants.

Now, he could get Beltran pants. But even if he did, Haywood’s catcher hadn’t completed his physical. So Haywood didn’t have anyone who could handle Beltran’s fastballs behind home plate, and his only other pitcher was ineligible, and so there was nobody around who feasibly could either throw or catch because there had been no chance to practice … and over the phone, Haywood let out a sigh that weighed about 5,000 pounds.

Panorama lost to Kennedy 35-2 that afternoon, in just its third game of the season.

“They really need to get some playing under their belt, and it’s not happening,” Haywood said of Panorama (0-4). “So it’s going to be pretty much a wash for us this year.”

A pun both genius and grim. Record rainfall in Los Angeles this spring has affected the schedules of most high school baseball and softball teams. Most top-tier programs in the City and Southern sections have been able to bounce back without issue, with the resources and field maintenance to capably handle the elements.

For a range of lower-division programs across the city, the weather has been unusually catastrophic. Here’s the report.

Track

With five weeks left in the season, the time is right to start lowering times in track and field.

Rodrick Pleasant of Gardena Serra, the state record-holder in the 100 meters, ran a wind-aided 10.23 seconds in the 100 at the Mt. SAC Relays.

It’s a good sign that Pleasant has every intention to match or break his record of 10.14 from last season.

Here’s the report.

Volleyball

A team mom coaching volleyball at Eagle Rock. It’s quite a story…

It defied all understanding of physics.

Inside Taft High’s historic gym in Woodland Hills, dozens of feet up in the air, a few outcropping beams no more than a couple of feet wide stretch across the ceiling. And somehow, because high schoolers can be agents of unbridled chaos, a volleyball rested on one of those beams throughout Wednesday afternoon’s match against Eagle Rock.

The match finished in a Taft sweep, Eagle Rock down its best player. Some high school coaches might spray spittle and strain their vocal cords in a postgame meeting. Instead, the eminently agreeable Michelle Hancock told Aidan Avena, one of her senior players for Eagle Rock, that she’d give him $5 if he could knock that volleyball from its impossible perch.

Not five seconds later, he flung a ball to the rafters and knocked it loose. Everyone on the team — including Hancock — started running around in giddy shock. And with a big smile, the coach plucked out a $5 bill and handed it to Avena.

“Every team we’ve played against,” Eagle Rock team captain Zechariah Fuentes said, “they’re like, ‘Your coach seems so nice.’”

Here’s the profile.

Girls in the City Section had their beach volleyball doubles championship Saturday in Santa Monica. The team from El Camino Real won the title.

Tennis

The best boys’ tennis player in the nation is Cassius Chinlund of Campbell Hall. He’s the No. 1-ranked junior player after winning the Easter Bowl 18U championship.

The annual Ojai Tennis Tournament begins April 27 with a field of 64 for singles players and doubles teams. One semifinalist from last year returns, Anaheim Canyon senior and Navy commit Steve Nguyen.

Notes

Rashad Winston is the new girls’ basketball coach at Grant. …

Blair Field in Long Beach will host all seven Southern Section divisional baseball championship games May 19 and 20. …

Outfielder Ethan Kearney of Agoura committed to Biola. …

Former Mira Costa distance star Dalia Frias is leaving Duke to transfer to UCLA. …

Narbonne All-City basketball player Marcus Adams said he intends to sign with Kansas on Monday. …

The City Section is finalizing a deal to hold its track and field championships next month at El Camino College. Birmingham has been the usual site but the school’s track has had bubbling issues during hot weather and could need to be replaced. …

Pitcher Evan Needham of Newbury Park committed to Sonoma State. …

Ryan Times, a contributor for the Loyola High baseball team, died last week. Here’s a report.

From the archives: Chimezie Metu

The pride of Lawndale High and USC, Chimezie Metu, is 26 years old and playing for the Sacramento Kings. He’s 6 feet 9 and averaging 4.9 points per game.

Here’s a 2015 story about Metu’s dunking and his perseverance after Lawndale lost a 28-point lead and fell in the Southern Section 2AA championship game.

Here’s a 2018 story about Metu returning for his junior season at USC.

Recommendations

From Kansasreflector.com, a story on how the word “elite” is being used as a marketing ploy in youth sports.

From the Los Angeles Times, a story on USC naming its track and field stadium after former L.A. Baptist star Allyson Felix.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, a story on San Diego coaching legend Herb Meyer passing away at 87.

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