THE HIGH SCHOOLS / SAM FARMER : City Baseball Seedings Produce Bitter Fruit for Poly in First-Round Upset

To hear Jerry Cord tell it, Taft High should not have been sharing the same field with Poly.

At least not in a first-round game of the City Section 4-A Division baseball playoffs.

Taft’s competence was not in question: The Toreadors proved they were worthy Friday, upsetting top-seeded Poly, 7-6, in 12 innings.

Cord, Poly’s coach, takes exception only to what he says was a last-minute switcheroo by City Section officials. By Cord’s understanding, Poly was to open against North Hollywood, the second-seeded wild-card team. Taft, seeded No. 1 among the four wild cards, was to play El Camino Real.

Poly and North Hollywood are both in the East Valley League and had played each other three times this season; El Camino Real and Taft are in the West Valley League. In an effort to add variety to the playoffs, the seeding system was scrapped and the pairings were changed to pit Poly against Taft and El Camino Real against North Hollywood.

Cord, who scouted the North Hollywood-Granada Hills game Wednesday, did not learn of the new pairings until he got a call from El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio on Thursday.

“He called and asked me who I thought we were playing Friday,” Cord said.

Maio said he learned of the rescheduling when he called City officials Thursday to confirm his opponent and site.

“We knew nothing about Taft,” Cord said Saturday, clearly aggravated. “We didn’t care because we were told we weren’t going to play them.”

Still, Cord offered no excuses for the loss. Poly (22-3) stranded 16 runners, including two in the 10th and 11th innings. The Parrots also yielded six unearned runs, each of which scored with two out.

“When you can’t make that third out you don’t deserve to win,” he said. “We hadn’t played like that all year long, not even close to that.”

Add Poly: Cord might consider the playoff format a form of gerrymandering, but City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness is largely unsympathetic.

Harkness said the decision was made by the coaches in a meeting May 9.

“(The coaches) were adamant that they wanted to play teams that were not in their own conference,” he said. “We said if the wild-card teams work out that way, then we’ll do it.

“We seeded to their wishes. The bottom line is, what difference does it make who you play in a first-round game? Baseball is baseball.

“If the wild-card situation continues to be a problem, then we’ll eliminate the wild card from the playoffs and just take the first- and second-place teams.”

Puffy-eyed prognosticator: Maio, who is also co-coach of the El Camino Real football team, played fortune teller last fall when he informed the football team of his three dreams. In each, the Conquistadores upset mighty Granada Hills. Lo and behold, the team defeated the Highlanders in the playoffs.

No predictions for baseball, however--the soothsayer is sleepless.

“Right now, I’m just staying up all night,” he said. “I haven’t had time to dream.”

Walk on the wild side: Kate Stoll hurled a no-hitter Friday to lead Ribet Academy to a 7-3 defeat of Oakwood in a Southern Section Small Schools softball playoff game. No one could touch her pitches, including, at times, her own catcher. Stoll walked 14 batters, which explains Oakwood’s three runs.

“Kate’s not a pitcher and she does it because we have nobody else,” Ribet Coach Judy Howard said of the converted catcher. “She’s doing this because she’s naturally talented.”

Natural talent or not, you can bet Stoll wouldn’t want to catch those pitches.

Absolute absolution: It seems Westlake third baseman Todd Preston redeems himself more often than a recycled aluminum can. Three times this season, Preston has committed a crucial error in a game and come back to drive in the winning run in that game.

Preston is batting a cool .197 with 13 hits in 66 at-bats. He has, however, made the most of his precious few hits, driving in 15 runs.

Friday against Mira Costa, Preston committed errors on the game’s first two ground balls, which led to two unearned runs. Later, Preston absolved himself by rapping an RBI double in the sixth that broke a 4-4 tie. Westlake won, 6-5.

Preston executed similarly against Camarillo and Thousand Oaks this season.

Noted Coach Rich Herrera: “When he does get the hit, he does do the damage.”

Thriving on diving: John Kiani and Katie Savage, seniors at Granada Hills High, plunged to City diving championships recently at Venice High. Both Highlanders are used to success, however.

This was Kiani’s third consecutive City title; he has not lost in high school competition. Kiani won this year with a score of 491.90 for 11 dives.

This was Savage’s first City title but it helped erase the disappointment of a fourth-place finish last year. She posted an upset this year with a score of 492.00.

“In warmups she was missing every dive,” said Tom Wagner, the Granada Hills swim coach. “But her first dive was outstanding and from then on she did fantastic.”

Kiani and Savage are members of the Los Angeles Diving Team and receive expert instruction from Coach Van Austin. Savage is also coached by Dennis Taylor.

“Van Austin comes to our meets and actually coaches them even though he isn’t connected with the high school,” Wagner said.

Their hard work has paid off in diving scholarships. Kiani will attend Michigan; Savage is headed for Nebraska.

Although Birmingham has long been a City diving power, Granada Hills has been best off the board for several years. Savage followed in the footsteps of Janet Lautenschlager, who won the City title in 1988. Lautenschlager, now at Arizona State, finished seventh in Division I this year.