Leach Fattens Up Batting Average After Hecklers Nibble at His Image

Granada Hills outfielder Jeremy Leach heard similar taunts last season. Another year of success as the Highlander quarterback has only heightened the verbal teasing, it appears.

When the 6-2, 215-pound senior stood in right field during Monday’s Mid-Valley League opener at Kennedy, such subtleties as “Hit it to the fat kid in right,” were launched from the Kennedy side of the stands.

Yet when these rival schools--both located in Granada Hills--meet, a little razzing is expected. A well-aimed verbal fastball never really hurt anybody, right?

Not this time. It backfired.

Leach, who has signed to play football with New Mexico after leading the City Section 4-A Division in passing yardage and touchdowns, stood in the batter’s box in the seventh inning, absorbing merciless barbs from a group of Golden Cougar fans: “There’s no center, there’s no receiver. What do you do now, Leach?” . . . “It’s a timing pattern, Leach. He throws the ball, and you swing the bat.” . . . “Hit it to Kyle Jan,” referring to Leach’s favorite target on the football field.

The fact that Kennedy was losing big only fueled the razzing, which drew sympathy for Leach among some in the crowd.

Said one observer: “I don’t think I ever rooted any harder for a kid to hit it out.”

With two outs and his back to the Kennedy fans, Leach stood his ground, fouling off a couple of two-strike pitches. Then he responded--drilling a single into right to score Chris Murphy with Granada Hills’ final run in an 8-2 win.

In the bottom of the inning, the Fat Kid in Right made a nice running catch of a ball hit down the line to end the game.

“Those guys were all over me,” Leach said. “They were trying to play with my mind.”

Add teasing: Royal’s 6-0 start is its best ever, and the Highlanders’ early success hasn’t been lost on Coach Mike McCurdy or the other members of the athletic department.

A reporter’s phone call requesting McCurdy brought this response from a faculty member: “Hey Michael, phone. It’s Peter Ueberroth.”

Said McCurdy: “They like to kid me down there.”

Travis Kinyoun leads Royal with a .500 batting average and a .714 on-base percentage that includes 6 hit-by-pitches.

Cheap seats: Monroe Coach Kevin Campbell took a different view of Saturday’s 13-12 win over visiting Kennedy in a Westside tournament game.

It wasn’t by choice.

Campbell was thrown out for arguing with the umpire in the fifth inning, his first ejection in three years at Monroe. The umpire then refused to let Campbell sit in the stands, forcing him to sit out in left field.

A Monroe assistant made two trips to confer with Campbell in the seventh inning, especially when things got crazy. Kennedy’s Gino Tagliaferri tripled to lead off the inning, putting the tying run on third. Catcher Adam Clark, who had not pitched since last season, then took the mound and retired the next three Kennedy batters to earn a save.

All for naught: In the El Segundo tournament Saturday, Crespi erupted for 23 hits and senior right-hander Dan Carroll pitched a 1-hitter in a 20-0 win over Miraleste.

And Crespi Coach Scott Muckey was thrilled, right?

Said Muckey: “It was nothing to write home about.”

Miraleste, a 4-A Division school scheduled to close its doors for good in June, apparently had a schedule conflict and sent its junior varsity team to play the 5-A Celts. The result, then, was predictable.

“You get a senior pitching to freshmen and sophomores,” Muckey said. “It was a real overmatch.”

Around the plate: Sylmar pitcher Olonzo Woodfin was uncomfortable batting left-handed against Poly’s Greg Nealon, an All-City left-hander, in Monday’s East Valley League game at Sylmar. So Woodfin asked Sylmar Coach John Klitsner if he could switch to the right side of the plate when he faced Nealon in the seventh.

“He wasn’t seeing the ball,” Klitsner said. “So I said, ‘Sure.’ ”

Klitsner dismissed any fears that Nealon might accidentally plunk Woodfin, an All-City pitcher, on his pitching arm.

“It entered my mind,” Klitsner said. “But I’m not going to walk around afraid to move.”

Woodfin singled but Poly won, 1-0, when Nealon stranded Woodfin and Art Monreal in the seventh.

Self-defense: Taft basketball Coach Jim Woodard came to the defense of junior point guard Dedan Thomas and others on the All-City team, selections that upset Cleveland Coach Bob Braswell after no Cleveland player made the team.

Braswell said Saturday that it is more than just scoring totals that count when selecting All-City players, something Woodard certainly did not dispute.

“Dedan wasn’t chosen because of his scoring, because he only averaged 14 points a game,” Woodard said. “He was chosen because he had games like he did against Cleveland, where he had 20 assists and only 1 turnover.”

Braswell said he was disappointed a player from Taft, which finished fourth in the Valley League, was selected over those at Cleveland, which was second in the league and was ranked No. 2 in the City for much of the year.

“Bob has to realize he can’t have it both ways,” Woodard said. “He has enough talent that several of the guys on his bench could start for lots of other teams. But if you play that many guys, they suffer statistically.”

The only Valley-area players selected were Thomas and El Camino Real’s Brent Lofton.

“I don’t think that’s all that bad considering none of our teams even made the semifinals,” Woodard said. “I just don’t think it was fair of him to detract from what Dedan and the others did because none of his kids made it.”

All alone: Oak Park prepared its baseball field Friday for a nonleague game but its opponent, Cate, failed to show up. It was the third time this season that Coach Ron Veres had to reschedule a game and the Eagles are growing restless.

Oak Park’s season-opener against Nordhoff was rained out. Its game against Santa Paula was canceled because of a fight that took place between the two schools during the Southern Section 1-A soccer playoffs. And Cate canceled its date without notifying Oak Park.

“It had been on the schedule for at least two months,” Veres said. “It’s like that bumper sticker that reads, ‘We called a war and no one showed up.’ There was a mix-up in communication and we’re in a process of rescheduling the game.”

Veres wanted his team to play at least one more nonleague game before its Tri-Valley League opener on Friday against Santa Ynez. Last week, he flipped through the Southern Section directory and called teams that were scheduled to play fewer than the maximum 20 games. L. A. Baptist agreed to play today at Oak Park.

Running results: Ian Alsen of Granada Hills had mixed results at the National Scholastic Indoor Track and Field Championships in New Haven, Conn., on Sunday.

Alsen, the defending City Section champion in the 3,200 meters, placed third in the mile, but dropped out of the two-mile.

Alsen lowered his personal best to 4 minutes, 12.52 seconds in the mile, finishing behind Rob Kennedy (4:10.59) of Westerville, Ohio, and Chip Smith (4:12.36) of Albuquerque. N. M.

Staff writers Tim Brown, Chris J. Parker and Sean Waters contributed to this notebook.