High Schools : Team Struggles as Ailing Coach Monitors Scores

A victory by the Cleveland baseball team would serve as a spoonful of sugar for Coach Ray Todd.

The Cleveland skipper, meanwhile, has had a tough time swallowing his medicine in the intensive care unit of Westlake Medical Center.

Todd, who has been unavailable for comment, was hospitalized March 22 after experiencing heart palpitations moments after Cleveland’s North Valley League game against San Fernando.

According to his wife, Janet, the 55-year-old Todd, who battled back from bypass surgery three years ago, will be released sometime next week. Last week, doctors implanted an automatic defibrillator to help maintain a consistent heartbeat.

“I think it’s all uphill now,” Janet Todd said. “It’s just a matter of getting his strength back. He’s had problems in the past, but he’s always come through.”

Meanwhile, Todd anxiously awaits postgame reports, which have not been too favorable. Cleveland, which had two wins and a tie in its first three games, is 1-5 under interim coaches Marty Siegel and Tom Smith.

“Marty usually will call him and tell him how the game went,” Janet Todd said. “One time he said, ‘They didn’t call me, so they must have lost.’ ”

Despite the losses, Todd’s illness has united the Cavaliers, Smith said. “They tend to coach each other,” he said. “They all want to see him back. I just try to teach what Coach Todd wants--hustle, hustle, hustle.”

Cleveland’s only victory in Todd’s absence is an 8-2 win over Canoga Park that earned a split of last week’s two-game series.

“The kids were a little bit lost at first,” Siegel said. “They had no idea this was going to happen.”

Said senior third baseman Tony Holiday: “It was harder for me than for some of the other guys because I’m so close to Coach Todd. I didn’t expect to make varsity as a 10th-grader, but he made the decision flat out: I was going to play my 10th-grade year.”

No decision has been made on whether Todd will return as coach this year, Janet Todd said.

“I’m sure he would like to,” she said. “But I really don’t know yet.”

Said Holiday: “Everybody hopes he’ll come back and re-take the team. But the thing right now is, we want him to get better.”

Double pump: Jim Brink considered it a big win. How big?

“I’ve been coaching here 11 years,” Brink said, “and that’s gotta be one of the biggest wins of our program.”

Brink was referring to Harvard’s dramatic, 5-4, victory in eight innings over Arcadia, a Pacific League power and owner of a 12-3 record entering Friday’s nonleague game at Balboa Park.

Brian Jacobsen, who pitched out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the first inning, and Guy Starkman teamed to stop the Apaches on five hits.

In the eighth, with two out and the bases loaded, Jay Borenstein fouled off several full-count pitches before stroking a single down the right-field line to win the game.

“After that,” Brink said, “there was a big flesh pile in the infield.”

What made Harvard’s feat in the heat even more impressive, however, was that earlier in the day, Harvard hammered Buckley, 15-2.

That’s a combined 20 runs on 27 hits in 100-degree weather.

No time out for Holly: What would a Harvard fall--or winter--or spring be without the play of senior Marty Holly?

Holly, the Saracens’ All-San Fernando Valley League tailback, all-league midfielder for the soccer team, tenacious leader of the school’s rugby squad and all-around sweaty guy, goes by another title in the spring--all-league center fielder.

Holly, a first-team selection each of the past two years, is batting .300 this season and was a combined four for six including a home run Friday.

“I like to skip around from season to season,” said Holly, who will play football at California in the fall. “I think if I didn’t have something to occupy my time with, I’d probably be a bum. I’d probably fall apart. It’s like I need sports to survive.”

Holly, by golly, even puts in ice time for the school’s hockey team. “It’s not really a team, though,” Holly said. “It’s a club. But I make the scheduled meetings.”

Simi switches: Rich Langford, Simi Valley’s undefeated right-hander, is day-to-day after hyper-extending his right shoulder March 29 in a 3-2 victory over Westlake.

Langford, 5-0 with a 0.45 earned-run average, has not pitched since but is tentatively scheduled to start Friday against Thousand Oaks.

If Langford is unable to pitch, junior Kenny Hood will replace Mike Jenkins on Wednesday against Channel Islands and Jenkins will fill in against Thousand Oaks.

Glad to be here: “Right now we feel like we can beat anybody,” Thousand Oaks Coach Jim Hansen said. “That is not to be so bold as to say we’re going to win the league title.”

And that’s not to say the Lancers could beat the Lancer alumni, which clobbered Hansen’s team, “about 22-3,” this season, according to Hansen.

That is to say that Hansen and Co. (3-1) are happy to be locked in a three-way tie for second with Camarillo and Simi Valley in the Marmonte League, considering “no real solid team leadership or no one taking that role on the team,” Hansen said.

And considering this season’s misadventures.

A nonleague game with Culver City was canceled when Culver City’s bus driver became sick two hours before game time. Then a nonleague game with Long Beach Poly during Easter week was canceled when several Poly players left for vacation.

Short on opponents and long on idle time, Hansen scheduled the alumni game. Bad idea.

“We were pretty low,” he said. “The kids were down, but they were more awe-struck by the alumni’s talent.

“But the main thing is, we’ve become a team.”