Baranowski = Popovich

I love Paul Baranowski. He has always been helpful to me in his two years as head varsity coach of La Jolla High boys basketball.

His text reply to me the other day was classic Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs coach known for his reticence to say too much.

I texted: "Hi u play next tues at alliant comment please"

Paul replied, concerning his team's first spring league game at Alliant University: "Nothing to comment on as of yet. We are just trying to learn to play together as a new group." Which is totally true!

Boys basketball outlook for the summer

Owen Porter operates near the basket
versus Marysville-Pilchuck, WA, at
UCSD last summer. (Photo by Ed Piper)

Boys basketball is only a week away, much to my surprise.

I looked up, having covered 13 sports at three high schools for the La Jolla Light, plus keeping my own LJHS loyalties going after 10 years (that's right - I started out in Fall 2004 when my granddaughter Alexis made the varsity cheer squad) by photographing as many teams in as many games as I could for my photo website during what turned out to be a hectic spring. And there, on leaguelineup.com, was a basketball game next Tuesday night at Alliant International University at 7:30 p.m.

Zach Duffy, with Gaynor Blackmon and Ladd Castellano, pantomimed "AIU" from the home team stands at the baseball field at Muirlands Middle School during La Jolla's wipeout of Mission Bay, 17-0, May 19. Zach pointed down, and I didn't know if that meant "tonight" or when. Then Coach Paul Baranowski's schedule on leaguelineup.com revealed the truth.

Ladd, Reed, Owen each a year older. Plus Morgan, Zach, Gaynor, Daniel, Grant...

I thought it might be a message from God when I first went onto my work computer to the League Lineup site and I didn't see any place to enter "La Jolla Vikings" under "Team" and "Boys Basketball" under "Sport", as I am used to doing. Then, finding the site saying I didn't have an account, I had to create a new account as if I had never been to the site.

Such are the vagaries of technology.

How long has Paul been head coach? Two years. How long has he kept the team's schedule on leaguelineup.com? Two years. How long have I had an account on the site? Two years...

Back to bball. Having no other insight than the fact Zach, Gaynor, and Ladd were sitting near one another at the baseball game, and access to last year's varsity roster on maxpreps.com, I surmise that the following players loom in the summer picture for La Jolla High's team: Ladd, Owen Porter, and Reed Farley returning as starters from 2013-14; Zach, Gaynor, Daniel Hemming. and Max Scott as returning guards/wings/swingman; Morgan Albers, Mark Rawdin, and Grant Miller returning in the front court. It is possible that one or more may not go out again next year. I don't know. Paul Baranowski isn't picking up his phone right now. (I say that with a smile. He has always been very helpful. I get impatient sometimes.)

I do not know who is coming up from the junior varsity from last year. Stay tuned for next Tuesday's opening spring/summer league game.

The summer schedule appears to include some Tuesday night games in a league at Alliant International University. During the last two summers, Paul has also favored "team camps" (tournaments in the summer over long weekends) at UCSD and SDSU. I think the team traveled to UCSB the last two summers, but I have never been to one of those team camps, though I lived in Santa Barbara and wrote sports for a small newspaper just outside the university campus in the 70's. Great days playing city league and outdoor pickup basketball on the courts at UCSB.


Copyright 2014 Ed Piper

Girls basketball outlook for the summer

Madeleine Gates passes under pressure

during big victory at Fallbrook

in the semis. (Photo by Ed Piper)

Dave Westhem, outgoing girls basketball coach at La Jolla, thinks the 2014-15 edition could be even better.

"I think the team is actually going to be better than last year," said Westhem, who will now serve as assistant coach to new head coach Johnnie Horne. "The league is going to be weaker. OLP has lost their three top players. Cathedral won't be as good. We have our best player, Madeleine Gates, coming back."

Imani Gallagher, an incoming freshman, is expected to bring defense and an improving offense into the starting lineup next year. Besides Gates at center, veteran guards Jenna Harmeyer and Amanda Polcyn will be coming back. Jenna supplies the speed, and Amanda supplies her valuable experience after two years on the varsity of bringing the ball up the court and playing team defense.

"I haven't seen her play. I'm taking the word of her travel team coach," said Westhem of Gallagher. "Her offense has to be worked on. Her defense is outstanding, he would say."

Helen Lee, projected to be the point guard last season, will also be back for her junior year. She tore her ACL and missed the entire basketball season, as well as the spring lacrosse season. But she was there, tending the snack bar at the varsity baseball game Monday, May 19, while the Vikings whacked visiting Mission Bay, 17-0. I remarked to her how great it was that Emily Young had been able to come back and play the last four games of the lacrosse season after missing nearly seven months of field hockey and lacrosse due to her own ACL tear. Helen agreed. I said, "She's leading the way for you to come back." We both smiled.

"I think next year's team will be better than last year's team." Dave Westhem

This will be the first season with an overload of talent on the girls basketball roster. Last summer and the summer before, the girls team had a hard time fielding more than six players in some summer league games. Before Westhem and his two daughters, Ashley and Sierra, there wasn't a tradition of playing outside of the winter basketball season. Dave quickly instituted summer league play, which yielded immense benefits in the experience that Amanda, Jenna, and others got. Plus Sierra, Madeleine, Sophie Sowers, Jenna, and Amanda were able to play as a unit and get more and more used to one another.

When Sophie played as a freshman on the varsity team in 2010-11, which I witnessed as I showed up to photograph the boys varsity games, she was one of the few girls who seemed to practice outside of the formal team practices. When you're playing against teams that play year-round, and you don't have girls who play the sport outside of the team practices, it makes it pretty tough to be competitive. That's the way things were back then. Cathedral recruits girls who are talents. OLP likewise. Both have the advantage of being private Catholic schools that can offer tuition payment to student-athletes that they wouldn't receive otherwise. What can La Jolla offer a girl? More playing time?

So, roster projections: Center - Madeleine Gates, Western League First Team All-League. (She should have been All-CIF as well.) Guards: Jenna Harmeyer, Helen Lee, Amanda Polcyn, Katie Miller, Sakura Roberson, Imani Gallagher. Forwards: Satori Roberson.

According to Westhem and Horne, who mentioned it at the team's year-end banquet earlier this month, there is another athletic incoming ninth-grader besides Gallagher who plans to enroll at La Jolla High. Her sister played at Cathedral Catholic, but the family has decided on a change to La Jolla High.

Jenna Harmeyer (10) shows her agility

against Oceanside in the quarterfinals.

(Photo by Ed Piper)

Copyright 2014 Ed Piper

Baseball: Notes

Catcher Jackson Hyytinen stretches for a Sam Schneider

pitch over the Bonita Vista batter's head in the Lions

Tournament April 16. (Photo by Ed Piper)

After I spoke with Viking second baseman Sean Hofmann, I asked catcher Jackson Hyytinen about his having played second base last year on the JV's. Hyytinen said it was true, that he had played second base during a hiatus from catching to let his knees recover. "I've caught my whole life," he said. But his knees had tightened up and were hurting after years of crouching behind the plate. He said he learned stretching exercises he can do, and his knees are fine now.

*     *     *

Pitching coach Jake Grosz had a funny comment during the May 19 win over Mission Bay at home. After Alex Eliopulos gloved a grounder near third base and made a complete 360-degree pirouette before throwing the batter out at first, I said, "Is that something you guys teach?" Grosz said, "It's natural. We concentrate on ballet in practice so that our players have more balance," and so forth. He said it deadpan, as if he were serious, which made it that much more humorous.

What showed concentration on Grosz's part was that he replied to me in the midst of giving signals to his catcher, Jackson Hyytinen, for each pitch. He didn't miss a beat.

James Whelan, who made a

sensational catch in right-centerfield

to preserve Sam Schneider's one-hitter

May 19. (Photo by Ed Piper)



Proud papa Greg Volger, a teacher at LJHS who photographs each home and away game for the Vikings, pointed out his son Brett holds not only the record for games played in a career (at 113) but also the record for times hit by a pitch--20. What's remarkable is that Brett stood in the way of pitches 15 times his freshman year. He only has two hit-by-pitch (HBP) this season, his senior year.

Father and son disputed whether Brett got hit three times in one game, but they agreed he has been hit twice in a game. Greg said one opposing coach told his pitcher sarcastically, "You've already hit the guy twice. You might as well hit him again." Which he proceeded to do.

 Copyright 2014 Ed Piper



Baseball: Vikes swamp Bucs, 17-0

Sam Schneider

(Photo by Ed Piper)

Lefty Sam Schneider pitched a one-hit gem and nearly every player on the La Jolla roster got a hit as the Vikings bombed Mission Bay, 17-0, May 18 at home on the strength of a 15-hit offensive barrage.

Schneider, who with shortstop Brett Volger and third baseman Alex Eliopulos was recognized during the game as a graduating senior playing his last regular season game at home, added a home run well over the yellow line in straightaway leftfield, more than 321 feet from the plate, in the sixth inning. Sam said it was his first home run since he was 13 years old playing on a travel team.

The Vikings clinched the Western League title outright last week, so their sole motivation in the game besides pride was toward ensuring a first-round CIF playoff game Wednesday, May 28, bypassing the play-in round the day before.

La Jolla (9-2 league, 19-8 overall) is already guaranteed a home game to open the Division II playoffs as a result of its fifth league championship in school history. Coach Gary Frank said that winning both games over Mission Bay, Monday, May 19, and Wednesday, May 21, at Mission Bay, would go a long way toward a seed in the first round May 28. The Vikings are halfway there.

Schneider, displaying a crisp fastball and change-of-speed curveball lower in the zone, retired 17 Buccaneers in a row after giving up the sole hit of the game for Mission Bay to opposing starting pitcher Erick Lopez as the second batter of the game. He upped his record to 7-2.

Centerfielder James Whelan preserved Schneider's one-hitter with a dazzling diving grab of Beto Escoto's drive to right-center after a long run for the second-to-last out of the game. Sam saw his consecutive-batter streak end starting the seventh, giving up his only walk to Lopez. The lefty struck out eight in the complete-game shutout.

Sean Hofmann

(Photo by Ed Piper)

Asked in the middle innings how far he hoped to pitch, Schneider said, "The whole game." Frank said last week that the big difference this year is his senior lefthander's confidence out on the mound.

Junior Allan Ross clubbed a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth inning in a sub role.

Volger upped his school record for games played in a career to 113. He slugged a double that hit the base of the fence just inside the leftfield foul line to start what would become a five-run sixth inning.

By then, Lopez had been chased, yielding 11 runs. He is Mission Bay's ace, holding six of the team's seven wins for the entire season. Buccaneer coach Rick Frink had replaced him with Michael Escoto, who gave up the Vikings' six final runs.

The black-and-gold visitors hurt their cause with five errors in the field. La Jolla didn't commit a one, backing up Schneider with sure-handed defense as he retired batters in order in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. His pitch count reached 52 by the end of the fifth frame.

La Jolla is ranked third among Division II teams by maxpreps.com. Second baseman Sean Hofmann leads Western League players in stolen bases with 11. Schneider's league-leading ERA before the game was 1.10. His seven wins pace Western League hurlers. Tim Holdgrafer leads pitchers in strikeouts with 43 and has the fifth highest batting average among hitters.


Copyright 2014 Ed Piper

LJHS Track - Western League Prelims

LJHS boys lacrosse

 

 

 

Here are some images of LJHS's game against Bishop's May 12. My Shutterfly website is not working properly, so you can enjoy some photos here instead. (Photos by Ed Piper)