It Was Base Stealing That Made Bell-Jeff Shoo-In for Playoffs

Raspberries.

The Bellarmine-Jefferson High baseball team has cornered the market on the bright red cuts, scratches and burns--the fruits of success for base stealers.

This season, Bell-Jeff has stolen 116 bases in 134 attempts.

That’s a lot of bases and a lot scar tissue.

“I’ve got huge raspberries all over my body,” said Petar Vucurevic, who has stolen 21 bases in 22 tries. “They’ve all been worth it, too, except for the last one on my leg. I kept waking up with it stuck to the bed sheets.”

Bell-Jeff’s success on the basepaths was the key to its third-place finish in the Santa Fe League and a berth in the Southern Section 1-A playoffs.

The Guards (8-4) will take on Olympic League champion and top-seeded Whittier Christian (12-2, 16-2) in an opening-round game today at Whittier Christian.

Bell-Jeff, with more than 500 students, is in Burbank.

“We’re a little school with a big heart and we try to bring that out in our athletes,” said Bell-Jeff Coach Hal Krug. “We had no idea we’d be as successful stealing bases as we’ve been this season. It just started to snowball.”

Last season, Bell-Jeff tried to be a power team and finished 3-9 in league and 8-14 overall.

This season, thanks to the running game, the Guards are making their first postseason appearance in three years.

“We have a young team with just two returning starters from last season,” said assistant coach Paul Heaney. “We knew we couldn’t match up in league relying on the traditional Bell-Jeff long-ball approach. So, we set a goal of five stolen bases a game which translates into 110 for the season.

“We wanted to give the kids a sense of progression,” Heaney added. “ We wanted their stealing to be part of their normal baseball development.”

And they have developed into major basepath felons.

Fernando Gauna has stolen 21 bases in 25 attempts.

Kevin Day, who stole home during a triple steal, is 22 for 24.

Nick Pavicic and Tony Perez are 11 for 12.

Throw in the steal and caught-stealing totals of Vucurevic and the other Guards and you get an 87% success rate on the basepaths.

The team that steals together . . . heals together?

“The difference between this year and last year’s team is the camaraderie. The sense of purpose,” said Krug.

Gauna, a fleet-footed junior, is the leadoff hitter and catalyst of the Bell-Jeff offense.

“I don’t care how I get on base, as long as I get there,” said Gauna. “For me, two walks a game is as good as two hits because the guys hitting behind me are going to see more fastballs.

“My own average is up almost 100 points compared to last season,” he added. “The success I’ve had on the bases has made me more selective as a hitter. It’s been good for every part of my game.”

Heaney says that from the beginning, he and Krug stressed the need to recognize the purpose of stealing bases.

“We steal to help us win,” Heaney said. “We don’t steal in place of winning.”

As the season progressed, the steals started adding up. And so did the wins.

“I didn’t know how many stolen bases I had until near the end of league. It was a real surprise,” said Vucurevic.

“Coach Heaney told us we’d reached our goal after the Murphy game,” said Gauna. “I didn’t think I had as many as I did.”

Krug, who has coached baseball for 10 years at Bell-Jeff, clearly enjoys the chaos his team’s baserunning antics can produce.

Yet, even with a single-game team high of 11 stolen bases, Krug claims he never intentionally ran up the number of steals to embarrass an opponent.

“I’ve coached in this league for a long time and I like and respect the other coaches I’m competing against,” said Krug. “But in our division, you never know what’s going to happen.

“A couple of times, when we were ahead by six or seven runs, we did let up. And we almost lost the ballgame.”

Krug would like to see the base stealing become a trademark at Bell-Jeff.

“We’re a small school competing against other, bigger, schools for players,” he added. “The more exciting we can make our program, the better.”