THE HIGH SCHOOLS / STEVE HENSON : Camarillo’s Kaup Breaks Fast in Transition Game

Nathan Kaup woke up and peeked outside Saturday morning--OK, it was actually about noon--and that classic late December California sunshine came streaming through the window.

Baseball weather.

The night before, Kaup had scored 19 points to lead the Camarillo High basketball team to the championship of the Ventura tournament. During the frantic final 20 seconds he preserved the Scorpions’ 70-69 victory by shadowing Brian Laibow, forcing the talented Agoura guard to miss an off-balance shot.

Kaup could be excused for sleeping in. But there was no excuse for letting this gorgeous day slip by without taking some swings and playing long toss.

Not when he is already signed, sealed and waiting to be delivered to Oklahoma State on a baseball scholarship.

“I have to make sure I’m ready when basketball season ends,” said Kaup, a third baseman and pitcher. “It means putting in extra time, but when I step on the baseball field, I feel at home.”

Three times a week, Kaup and teammate Joe Borchard, a junior who also plays basketball and baseball, fire up the pitching machine in Borchard’s backyard. Then they hit the field for long toss, working every muscle in their throwing arms.

“Last year I didn’t take enough precautions and my arm wasn’t where it should have been,” Kaup said. “I couldn’t pitch for the first 3-4 weeks.”

He wants to hit the mound gunning this year. Kaup was 6-2 with a 2.90 earned-run average last season, and he also hit .356 with 26 runs batted in. He and Westlake’s Matt Riordan are the top professional prospects in the Marmonte League.

Kaup played on a Cleveland Indian scout team through the fall, but his work ethic has not fallen off since.

Working double time is a given for multisport athletes such as Junior Brignac of Cleveland, Charles Merricks of Channel Islands and Mike Lauer of Thousand Oaks, to name a few from the area who excel at both basketball and baseball.

It’s a delicate balance. The larger roundball is foremost on Kaup’s mind--it is basketball season and he does average 15.3 points a game--but baseball is something he can’t afford to neglect.

“I’m really excited about basketball,” Kaup said. “Our team is coming together and we want to win our league. I just need to prepare for baseball too.”

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Maybe lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, but Friday night it struck in the same fashion 3,000 miles apart.

In Newhall, Jon Norman took an inbounds pass with one second to play in the third-place game of the Hart tournament and threw the ball more than 60 feet into the basket to give Antelope Valley an 81-78 victory over Simi Valley.

Meanwhile, in Lewes, Del., Alex Gelbard used something of a shotput technique to fling home a 50-foot shot that enabled Harvard-Westlake to extend Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic to overtime before losing in double overtime.

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The secret is out regarding Canoga Park basketball.

Coach Ralph Turner had hoped to “sneak up” on opponents this season. However, the Hunters have bolted to an 11-2 record, and now no one is taking them lightly.

“We wanted to come out and surprise people,” Turner said.

But after defeating a highly regarded Chatsworth team early in the season and winning the title of the Hart tournament, “we are no longer a secret,” Turner said.

Turner took over as coach at Canoga Park last season and guided them to the Valley Pac-8 title and a 13-11 record. The Hunters, who had finished 3-19 the year before, advanced to the second round of the City Section 3-A Division playoffs and lost to Birmingham.

This season, the forecast appeared bleak for Canoga Park. Turner had only two returning players, Carloes Harper Jr. and Anthony Ellison.

But according to Turner it was never a problem.

“The thing that I couldn’t believe about this school is that it was so full of talent,” Turner said.

Turner’s claim is supported by four selections on the Hart all-tournament team. Jamal Haqq, Rene Bernal and Ellison made the first team and Harper was the tournament’s most valuable player.

“The biggest problem at Canoga when I arrived was lack of confidence,” Turner said. “It was non-existent. Now I’ve got these guys believing in themselves.”

And opposing teams believing too.

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Santa Clara junior Niecee Madrigal is still a three-sport varsity athlete but there’s been a substitution in the sports she plays.

Madrigal, a first-team All-Frontier League selection in volleyball, soccer and softball, has returned to basketball and dropped soccer as her winter sport.

This despite a 1994-95 soccer season in which she earned third-team All-Southern Section honors after helping the Saints win a league title and advance to the Division IV semifinals.

“[Basketball] is just something in my heart,” said Madrigal, who played for the Santa Clara junior varsity basketball team as a freshman, then moved to soccer as a sophomore.

“The excitement of the game keeps me going and I love everything about it.”

Giving up soccer was difficult for Madrigal, who played nine years in American Youth Soccer Organization leagues before entering Santa Clara.

“I try to go see [the soccer team’s] games when I can,” Madrigal said. “The players are kind of upset that I left.”

Madrigal has played regularly as a backup point guard this winter and hopes to improve enough to become a starter and perhaps play in college. And after her prep career ends, there may be more multisport Madrigals at Santa Clara in the persons of her younger brothers--Mike, a 14-year-old three-sport freshman, and Ryan, 2.

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Contributing: Bryan Rodgers, Tris Wykes.