Crowley Could Play Hard Ball With Coaches

Southern Section Commissioner Dean Crowley is shouting back at all baseball coaches who spend Saturdays during the off-season screaming at their players from the stands and from score booths:

Cease and desist! You are violating the rules!

“If a coach is communicating in any manner with the kids, it’s illegal,” Crowley said. “If a coach is sitting in any area the general public is not welcome, that’s illegal. If a coach is taking notes on a clipboard, that’s illegal.

“The coach may sit in the stands and watch like anybody else. Any other contact is a violation.”

Make no mistake, many area coaches repeatedly violate the rule prohibiting contact with players during off-season games. The kids make mistakes on the field, and the coaches, being coaches, can’t help themselves from correcting them.

Immediately, loudly and illegally.

The problem is becoming more acute. Loosely formed leagues of high school teams in the fall and winter have proliferated, with fathers or volunteers serving as coaches.

Often, however, the high school coach is pulling the strings a short distance away.

Crowley pointed out another off-season problem associated primarily with baseball.

Coaches may teach a class for their players, typically the final period of the school day. Yet many coaches insist that players remain after school and work out, with the coach stepping off the field but remaining in the vicinity.

“Leaving kids on their own, especially if a coach has made the practice mandatory, is opening the school and the Southern Section to major liability problems,” Crowley said.

Coaches tempted to get a jump on the official opening of practice on Feb. 22 by requiring a team to practice on its own might want to reconsider.

“They won’t be coaching for long if they are reported,” Crowley said.

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In his first varsity match, Poly goalkeeper Eduardo Mesta not only rose to the occasion, he dove, slid, jumped and kicked effectively in a 3-1 defeat of previously unbeaten Reseda on Friday in a showdown of top Valley Pac-8 Conference teams.

The junior, whose poor grades kept him off the team last season, played in place of starter Milton Larrama, who was ejected in a prior match.

Mesta made eight saves, several of them outstanding, and was carried off the field by his teammates at the end of the match.

Surprising? Not for Mesta, who has played goalkeeper for only a year but is tutored by his older brother, Luis, a high-scoring forward last season at Mission College.

“He practices with me a lot and shows me things that make it difficult for [shooters]” Mesta said. “We go to the park a lot.”

Despite his sterling debut, Mesta is not pushing for a permanent starting role.

“[Larrama] is a senior so I’ll go back to being a backup or to J.V.,” he said.

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More troubling than the result for Reseda was the behavior of two of its players, seniors Marvin Quijano and Alex Acevedo, among the best and most petulant players in the City Section.

Each was ejected in the match for arguing with the officials. Reseda had held a man advantage after a Poly player was ejected for a hard foul but finished the match with nine players to Poly’s 10.

“I tell them over and over, ‘If you guys want to win you have to keep your heads in the game,’ ” Reseda Coach Julio Castillo said. “I can’t control their heads.”

Acevedo, who flopped face down on the sideline after being ejected, said his profane outburst was caused by frustration over his team’s play.

“I’m the worst loser in America,” he said. “[Getting upset] is a problem only I can work on. I used to be even more childish.”

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Could any boys’ basketball team possibly underachieve more than Canoga Park?

Blessed with the most talent of any team in the region west of Harvard-Westlake, the Hunters are easy prey for opponents who simply hustle and are fundamentally sound.

The latest to slap Canoga Park upside the head is Poly, a 101-94 winner in double overtime Friday in a Valley Pac-8 Conference game. Poly is a City Section 3-A team; Canoga Park is a 4-A team with the talent to contend for the City championship.

Some of the Hunters’ early losses were at the hands of supposed powers, but good teams should beat good teams at least some of the time.

Canoga Park (9-8, 2-1 in conference) has time to pull together, win the conference title, and jell in time for the playoffs. But it won’t happen just walking onto the court.

Staff writer Tris Wykes contributed to this story.