Littlerock Players Start Rounding the Bases ‘Round Midnight

Midnight Madness, baseball-style, arrived at Littlerock High last weekend.

Just past midnight Saturday, Coach Bernie Kyman assembled his team at the earliest possible time Southern Section teams are allowed to practice.

The absence of lights on the Lobos’ field didn’t present a problem. Kyman had his players park their cars and shine headlights along the base paths. After 30 minutes of batting practice, the team practiced indoors for 2 1/2 hours, culminating in an indoor baseball game, then retreated to the wrestling room for a few hours of sleep before resuming workouts.

“I wanted their first day to be something they remember for the rest of their lives,” Kyman said.

Joined at the hip: Those rival sharpshooters, North Hollywood’s Arthur Lee and Grant’s Ronald Patterson, were at their best Friday in the first round of the City Section basketball playoffs.

Patterson, who led Valley Pac-8 Conference players in scoring by less than a point over Lee, scored 30 points and made a 50-foot shot at the buzzer to give Grant a 58-55 4-A Division victory over Locke.

Lee, meanwhile, earned the admiration of Crenshaw’s fans with 31 points in North Hollywood’s 72-65 loss to the top-seeded Cougars. Lee scored 18 of North Hollywood’s 20 fourth-quarter points and gave the Huskies their only lead, 61-60, on a three-point shot with 3:54 to play.

“Your guy is no joke,” a Crenshaw supporter told a group of North Hollywood fans after the game, in which Lee made five three-pointers.

A disappointed Lee said he wanted more than to throw a scare into Crenshaw, two-time defending State Division I champion.

“We thought we were going to come in here and win,” he said. “No one gave us a chance, but we played tough.”

Patterson and Grant get their shot at the Cougars in a quarterfinal game tonight at Crenshaw.

After Friday’s game, Patterson is averaging 23.7 points a game. Lee ended the season with a 23.3 average.

Add Patterson and Lee: Patterson won the conference’s most valuable player award over Lee, who was an overwhelming favorite for that honor entering the season.

Lee, bound for Stanford, has been heralded as the best player in the conference for two years.

Before the season, however, the coaches agreed that the MVP award would go to someone on the championship team, which was Grant.

Coaches voted 3-1 in favor of Patterson.

Three’s a charm: The Cal Lutheran baseball team, off to its worst start in history, finally got a break Monday.

The Kingsmen led Westmont, 7-4, in the top of the ninth inning, when the Warriors loaded the bases with none out. But Cal Lutheran shortstop Thomas Lunsford, a late-inning defensive replacement, caught a line drive, stepped on second and threw to first for a triple play to give the Kingsmen (1-5) their first victory.

“When it’s going south it really goes south,” Kingsmen Coach Marty Slimak said, “and when it goes north it really goes north.”

Slimak, a Cal Lutheran assistant before taking over as head coach last year, said it was the first triple play he’d seen the Kingsmen turn in his six years at the school.

Hall of fame name: Although she spells her first name differently, Robyn Roberts, a freshman right-hander for the St. Bonaventure High softball team, shares the name of a baseball legend.

Much will depend on Roberts, who figures to get in her share of mound time, if the Seraphs improve last season’s 10-12 record. Just don’t ask her about Robin Roberts, the Hall of Fame right-hander who spent most of his big league career (1948-66) with the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I asked her one day about him,” Coach Craig Thompson said. “She didn’t have a clue who he was.”

Court royalty: Amirah Leonard had a chance to be the junior prom queen at Crescenta Valley High on Saturday. She missed the dance, however, because her girls’ basketball team had a playoff game at Rio Mesa.

Amirah, which means princess in Arabic, did not get the crown. She settled for 26 points in the Falcons’ 46-38 second-round victory.

“I was on the ballot,” Leonard said. “But I don’t think anyone voted for me because they knew I had a game. That’s OK, though. I’d rather play basketball.”

Quotebook

Buena boys’ basketball coach Glen Hannah, after watching a scouting tape involving Hueneme Coach Howard Davis and Oxnard Coach Henry Lobo, both among the league’s more animated coaches: “They were more fun to watch than the game.”

They’re flexible: Royal baseball Coach Dan Maye, whose team had only one starting position open in the off-season: “Everyone became a third baseman over the summer.”

Stats

College of the Canyons, which won the men’s State golf championship in 1993, is off to its best start in Coach Gary Peterson’s 12 seasons. The Cougars are 52-2 overall and 15-0 in Western State Conference play.

Leo Gorauskas, a 6-foot-9 sophomore center on The Master’s College men’s basketball team, is on pace to break the school’s single-season record for field goal percentage.

Gorauskas, who is averaging 13.8 points a game, has made 69.5% (155 of 223) of his shots.

The school record of 62.9% was set by Kelly Byrd during the 1985-86 season.

The Cal State Northridge baseball team set a school record on Saturday by being walked 13 times by three UC Santa Barbara pitchers, including El Camino Real High graduate Pat Treend, who walked eight in 4 2/3 innings.

Things to Do

The Cal State Northridge baseball team will play UCLA at 2 p.m. today at Northridge and Jim Parque, The Times’ 1994 Valley pitcher of the year, is scheduled to pitch for the Bruins. Parque, a left-hander from Crescenta Valley High, is 1-1 with 2.50 earned-run average and 22 strikeouts in 18 innings.

Northridge students looking for a quiet place to study can come to the school gymnasium at 7 tonight when the Matador women’s basketball team will play Cal State Los Angeles. Usually the crowd is smaller than that at the library. The game figures to be Northridge’s best chance to end a school-record 27-game losing streak.

Compiled by Rob Fernas. Contributing: Michael Lazarus, Rob Fernas, Dave Desmond, Dana Haddad, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, John Ortega, Mike Hiserman.