THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Notre Dame Spared Bother of Playoff Tiebreaker After Chaminade Ends Long Skid

Notre Dame High’s baseball team got by with a little help from its rivals.

The Knights knocked off St. Paul, 5-4, on Friday to keep alive their hopes of advancing to the Southern Section 5-A Division playoffs, but they needed a big assist to automatically qualify.

Alemany finished its Mission League season Wednesday at 8-4, the same mark as Notre Dame. Unfortunately for the Knights, St. Bernard, 7-4 entering play Friday, needed only to beat Chaminade to force a playoff tiebreaker, and the Eagles were in the throes of a 21-game losing streak.

Stakes were higher than a coach’s blood pressure. Crespi, as expected, defeated Bishop Montgomery, on Friday to win the title at 9-3. Had Alemany, St. Bernard and Notre Dame finished in a three-way tie for second at 8-4, the latter two would have had to meet in a playoff game Saturday. Notre Dame and St. Bernard lost a coin flip to Alemany on Friday.

But assistance sometimes comes from the least likely quarter.

Notre Dame took care of business. Unbelievably, so did Chaminade, winning 3-2. Notre Dame could hardly believe the news and players erupted with joy.

Chaminade, which had last won on Friday the 13th in March, scored the go-ahead run in the sixth on an infield single by freshman Kevin Lohman, who pulled his team from the depths of despair with the biggest hit of his career.

Chaminade had a runner at third with none out in the sixth, but the next two batters struck out, bringing Lohman to the plate. Coincidentally, Lohman’s older brother Kevin was a standout at Notre Dame two years ago and now plays at UCLA.

“Everybody was real down after the two strikeouts,” Chaminade assistant Dave Desmond said. “I tried to pump ‘em up by saying, ‘Hey, Kevin Lohman is a clutch player and this is the beginning of his career.’ Right about then, he topped one to short.”

It was a big-top circus ending. Chaminade’s unlikely victory ensured that Valley teams Crespi (19-5), Alemany (16-9-1) and Notre Dame (14-8-1) qualified for postseason play.

Add streak-busters: Note to those at Chaminade--things could be much, much worse.

For seven seasons, the Channel Islands softball team was the most consistent squad in the Marmonte League. Of course, this kind of consistency is what most call futility.

Channel Islands defeated Westlake, 1-0, Tuesday in its league finale to snap a nightmarish streak.

Over the past six seasons--plus 13 games this spring--the Raiders had compiled an 87-game losing streak in league play. Entering the game against Westlake, Channel Islands was 1-123 in league play spanning the past 10 seasons. The Raiders’ most recent league win was in 1985, when the current crop of players was in grade school.

Channel Islands finished 5-15, 1-13 in league play.

Ghost of a chance: The Kennedy shortstop fields a tough grounder on a short hop and fires to first base. Or was it second?

The farcical inning comes to an end. No runs, no hits, no errors.

In fact, nothing.

Facing a key game against archrival Granada Hills on Wednesday, Kennedy reached into its bag of motivational tricks and pulled a disappearing act. In this case, the ball itself was gone in a poof of infield dust.

Kennedy took the field to conduct infield warm-up drills sans baseball and went through the whole routine as though the ball actually was being used. Players call it taking “phantom” infield practice.

“The junior varsity did it last year all the time and went something like 8-0 in those games,” first baseman Jeff Tagliaferri said.

The Kennedy varsity dusted off the trick for the first time during a tournament in Las Vegas over spring break. Kennedy was tired from playing a game in the morning and used the phantom as its warm-up for an afternoon game.

“The fans in Vegas were cheering while we were doing it,” Tagliaferri said. “They loved it and it really pumped us up.”

Looking for an emotional edge, Kennedy players suggested a reappearance of the phantom. Coach Manny Alvarado went along.

“It’s a change of pace,” Alvarado said. “They’re acting out there, but at least we can’t make a mistake.”

It wasn’t exactly mistake-free ball when the game commenced. Kennedy committed two errors and Granada Hills four, but Kennedy beat the Highlanders, 5-4, and moved into a first-place tie with Granada Hills in the North Valley League with one game remaining.

Sweet 16: As expected, the races in the North and West Valley leagues have been closer than a bang-bang play at first base. Sixteen league games have settled nary a thing.

Chatsworth, El Camino Real and Taft will enter Monday’s regular-season finales with 10-6 marks in West Valley play. Kennedy and Granada Hills are 10-6 in the North Valley.

El Camino Real has the easiest road to a co-championship. The Conquistadores will play host to Reseda (3-15, 1-15) while Taft plays at Chatsworth. The winner of the latter game can do no worse than earn a share of the league championship.

Cleveland, in third place at 7-9 in the North Valley, will play at Kennedy on Monday. San Fernando, which at 6-10 needs a victory for any shot at a playoff berth, will play at Granada Hills.

San Fernando Coach Steve Marden wins the year’s I-Told-You-So Award. Marden predicted before the season’s first pitch that a mark of 11-6 or 10-7 would win a league title in the Northwest Valley Conference.

Marden’s Tigers, the defending 4-A champions, are in a difficult position. Alvarado, a former Marden assistant, would like to see Marden and San Fernando earn a playoff berth.

“If he makes it, that means Granada loses,” Alvarado said.

Triple threat: Crespi has pulled a trifecta in the Mission League horse race in the three major sports in 1991-92.

The Celts last fall won their first league championship in football since 1973, won a share of their first league title in boys’ basketball since 1985-86 over the winter and on Friday won their first baseball title since 1988.

It will be up to the baseball team to snap another streak; the Celts’ football and basketball teams were beaten in the first round of the playoffs.

Hartbreak: The Hart golf team appeared to have earned a berth in the Southern Section team final at L.A. Royal Vista Golf Course in Walnut last Monday after a Servite player signed an incorrect scorecard and was disqualified.

Servite would have finished in a tie with Peninsula for second with a five-man total of 387, but because the Friars had to use the score of their sixth man, they fell to fourth. Hart shot 390 and moved into third. Only the top three teams from each regional advance to the final.

Said Hart Coach Dennis Ford on Monday: “The kicker is that the Servite coach is a math teacher.”

The mood changed Tuesday when the Southern Section reinstated Servite and bumped Hart to fourth. Section administrator Dean Crowley ruled that the score of the disqualified Servite player added up correctly on a hole-by-hole basis, but that the total was calculated incorrectly.

In short, the section ruled that the final tally was the responsibility of the scoring committee, not the player who signed the incorrect scorecard.

“We consulted the (U.S. Golf Assn.) rule book,” Crowley said. “The player is only responsible for the hole-by-hole score. The committee is responsible for the total.” The removal of Hart from the tournament field leaves Ventura and Rio Mesa as the lone area entries in the team final Monday at Canyon Country Club in Palm Springs.

The downside: Streaks have become almost routine for El Camino Real shortstop Dan Cey, who hit safely in his first eight games.

After he was held hitless by Kennedy in a game in which he walked three times and was 0 for 1, he embarked on another tear. Last Monday, Cey’s 10-game streak was halted by Taft when he went 0 for 3. He was hitless in four at-bats against Chatsworth on Wednesday.

“(Zero) for the week,” Cey said.

An 0-for-7 skein would kill most the average of most high school players. Cey, who had flirted with .500 most of the spring, is still batting a solid 32 for 72 (.444). It has not been a one-dimensional season, either.

“You can’t believe how many runs he’s saved us with his glove,” Coach Mike Maio said.