Enduring Odd Rites of Spring

Ode to spring.

* Good to see everyone is getting even with Fountain Valley’s baseball team.

Yes, the Barons, the two-time defending Southern Section Division I champions, are only tied for first in the Sunset League.

Six starters and all the top pitchers have graduated and, boy, does it show. Why, Steve Schenewerk struck out only 11 of 15 batters in Friday’s victory over Los Alamitos.

“Sometimes tradition works against you,” Fountain Valley Coach Ron La Ruffa said.

Just when are those times, coach? Your opponents would like to know.

* Bill Crow, Trabuco Hills’ first-year football coach, thought the worst days were behind him. Turned out, it was the discus ring that was behind him.

Crow, who suffered through a 3-7 football season, was working as an official at a track meet this month and was about to start the girls’ 100 meters when someone shouted, “Heads up.” Crow turned in time to get smacked in the face by a discus.

After a trip to the emergency room, he had more than 20 stitches and a nose that would make Durante proud. Still, there was a bright side: “I told the guy in the ambulance I was working a junior college meet the day before and they were throwing the javelin,” Crow said.

* At La Quinta, the Aztec baseball team won seven games in eight days after a 2-3 start.

“I decided to put the fastest guy in the leadoff spot and the guy with the most home runs at cleanup,” Coach Dave Demarest said. Any wonder why he has been to three consecutive section title games?

* Officials recently discovered the Dana Hills’ gymnastics mat is contaminated and condemned it. Heck of a symbol for an entire athletic program that appears to be rotting from the inside. Three football coaches in four years; four basketball coaches (one interim) in five years, and a successful baseball coach who had enough after 15 years.

Now the infection seems to be spreading to the music department.

But everything is hunky-dory at the Capistrano Unified School District office. Of course, according to one coach, the district wants Capistrano Valley to be the district’s “athletic’ school and Dana Hills to be the “academic” school.

* So if Capistrano Valley gets the brawn and Dana Hills gets the brains, what’s left for San Clemente? Surf’s up, dude.

* For those wondering, yes, Cypress’ Bobby Brito can still hit home runs. Three teams in seven days tested whether the Centurion catcher had gone soft. He hit five home runs in three games, bringing his career total to 21.

No more strikes for Mr. Brito, got it?

* Laguna Beach volleyball Coach Michael Soylular might resign after it was discovered he was coaching a girls’ club team that had Laguna Beach players on it. Not exactly a felony, since he is the boys’ coach at the school. Still, Soylular has run afoul of the section’s law before.

In 1995, he used a player in a varsity and junior varsity match on the same day. The Artists had to forfeit the victory, which ended their 63-game Pacific Coast League winning streak. In 1992, he was suspended for three league matches after it was discovered he had used a few non-alumni players in a Laguna Beach alumni match.

Now comes another apparent violation, which would cost Soylular his job. See, that three strikes thing does work.

* Freshman Amanda Beard won the 200 individual medley and 100 freestyle last week in her first swim meet for Irvine High.

You know you have a pretty good team when a swimmer qualifies for the Olympics before she competes as a high school athlete.