HIGH SCHOOLS

Diamond dancing: Saugus pitcher and leadoff batter Nicole Giordano has been bothered by tendinitis in her right knee, but it didn’t stop her from stealing her area-leading 48th and 49th bases in a first-round playoff game last week.

But the Arizona-bound senior has slowed a little.

“It’s maybe taken a step and a half off her home-to-first time,� Coach Ron Hilton said, whose only concern is that Giordano hasn’t shown much concern for her injury. “I’ve got her icing it down. She should be taking anti-inflammatories. But you know how kids don’t always do what they’re supposed to do. ‘What? You mean I can’t go dancing?’ �

Dark park: It was a game so close, no one could have called it.

Except the umpires, who almost did.

As the Kennedy and El Camino Real softball teams headed into the ninth inning with the score tied, 1-1, umpires, coaches and City officials conferred and decided that the game would have to be suspended if the teams remained deadlocked after one more inning.

The prospect of a suspended championship game was faced for lack of lights at UCLA’s Easton Field, a condition brought on by an edict of the owners of a home just beyond the right-field fence.

“They donated the land and said you can do anything you want with it, but no lights,� said Rosemarie Martinez, a City game official and the softball coach at Carson High.

A suspended game was averted when El Camino Real scored a run in the bottom of the ninth.

Catching on: Ryan Capretta, a 1995 Agoura High graduate, will attend Indiana State on a football scholarship. Capretta, a wide receiver, had 46 catches for 834 yards and nine touchdowns for Santa Barbara City College last season.

Indiana State, located in Terre Haute, was 6-5 last season.

“They said I have a good chance of playing in my first year,� Capretta said.

Foot note: Senior Kevin Brusca of Camarillo High, the Ventura County champion in the boys’ pole vault, will not compete in the Southern Section Masters Meet on Friday because of a foot injury.

Brusca tied for third in the Division I competition of the Southern Section championships by clearing 14 feet, but he broke two bones in his right foot when he came down awkwardly on the landing mat after missing his second attempt at 14-6.