Prep Review / Steve Lowery : Laguna Hills Hitters Having Career Years

A good year has turned into a record-setting one for the Laguna Hills High School baseball team, which is 18-4 overall and 10-1 in Pacific Coast League play.

Two players--outfielder Chris Sheff and first baseman/pitcher Rob Milo--have gone over 100 career hits this season. Catcher Mike Helm has 96 hits and, with two weeks left in the season and a .451 batting average, figures to become the third.

“It’s kind of interesting that three guys would do it in the same season,” said Jack Hodges, Laguna Hills coach.

Only one other player in the school’s 11-year history, Lee Plummel, has 100 or more hits in a career. Plummel got exactly 100 from 1982-84 and went on to a notable career at Stanford.

Sheff, who is hitting .405, tied Jeff Osborn’s Orange County career record of 116 hits on Friday when he got four hits against Orange. Osborn, who played at La Quinta, set his record between 1982 and 1984.

Sheff, who will play at Pepperdine next season, also became a member of the 100-run club on Friday. He has scored 101. He leads the county in that category with 35, and is also the county leader in stolen bases with 20.

“I don’t know if that’s (100 hits, 100 runs) a record, nobody keeps track of these things, but it’s still pretty amazing,” Hodges said.

Milo, who hit two home runs against Orange, has 106 hits. He and Sheff are four-year varsity starters. That’s unusual to begin with, but even more so when you consider that Hodges, one of the county’s most successful coaches, usually carries a squad of only 12 players.

“It’s strange for us to have two freshmen start,” Hodges said. “But you could tell right away that these kids had what it took.”

Milo, who has signed to play at Stanford, has the distinction of playing in every inning of every game in the four years and is hitting .385 this season.

Helm, brother of Pepperdine pitcher and former Laguna Hills star Wayne Helm, has reached the 100-hit doorstep in only three seasons. Helm, who has signed to attend Santa Clara in the fall, leads the county in hits with 37.

Matt Jordan of Dana Hills High School seems to have been born to the shotput. His father and grandfather competed in the event, and Matt started when he was in the fifth grade.

“When I’m throwing, it’s seems that’s what I was meant to do,” he said.

So tied is he to the sport that the distinction between self and shot sometimes becomes murky. Consider this: Jordan wants to add weight. How much? About 10 feet.

In Jordan’s way of thinking, 20 pounds on his body means about 10 more feet in his throw.

Jordan, 17, is no slouch right now. Last week he set the school record for the event with a throw of 54-feet 6-inches in a South Coast League meet against Mission Viejo.

But, at 6-feet and 195 pounds, he’s no hulk either.

“I guess you’d call me wiry,” Jordan said.

Wiry is fine for a pitcher or small forward, but the shotput? Consider that Jordan broke Darren Baird’s school record. Baird was 6-6 and 240 pounds when he made the throw.

Jordan had planned to put on an extra 15 to 20 pounds coming into this season to get the extra distance. But he gained only about five pounds, then lost 10 when caught the flu, and has now gained five back to get right back where he started.

“I’m happy with this year so far, but I actually was hoping I would be throwing in the 60s by now,” said Jordan, a junior.

“I guess my body just wasn’t ready to get big,” he said.

So in lieu of bulk, Jordan relies on technique.

“He’s good because he understands the physics of the sport so well,” said Eric Benson, the throwing coach at Dana Hills.

His teachers in the subject are his father, Chris, and grandfather, Dan, both of whom competed in the event at Glendale High School. Dan went on to throw at Washington State and Chris had a chance to go to UCLA before a knee injury stopped his career.

“I’d love to be huge,” Jordan said. “But since I’m not right now, I have to be faster and have better technique than the others or I won’t have a chance.”

Jordan said he’s encouraged by the fact that, at the 1988 Summer Olympics, the lightest man in the competition, East Germany’s Udo Beyer, won the gold medal.

Of course, Beyer weighed 238 pounds the day he won.

Jordan is shooting for 215 next season, but he’d settle for 210.

For all the great numbers, you’ve got to wonder how much fun University’s Dave Dieter is having this baseball season.

Dieter, a senior catcher who has signed to play at UC Irvine, is hitting .422 on the season, .529 in the Sea View League and has an incredible on-base percentage of .800 in league play.

The last number presents the problem. Dieter has been walked more times this year than the family poodle. He was walked 18 times in University’s first nine league games.

The reason for this is what Dieter did last season--he hit .483 and had 24 RBIs--and the fact that University Coach Steve Ruiz has had some difficulty finding someone to bat behind Dieter who can protect him, i.e., get some hits.

But Ruiz may have found that person in Trent McGinn, who was moved from the No. 3 spot ahead of Dieter, to No. 5.

In the first game, Ruiz tried the switch, McGinn got five RBIs.

“I know it must be frustrating for Dave not be allowed to do what you do best,” Ruiz said. “But with him on base and someone behind to pick him up, we figure to score runs.”

Usually the most discriminating of baseball statistics, the triple is taking a beating at Boysen Park in Anaheim. That’s the home park of Katella’s baseball team, which has gone completely nutty hitting triples.

Two Katella hitters, Billy Fitzgerald and Jeremy Sherman, are among the county leaders with five apiece. Three other Katella players each have three triples.

One explanation may be Boysen Park itself. The park is 400 feet to dead center and 390 in the power alleys--dimensions of a typical major league park.

Fitzgerald, who has three home runs this season, has had two balls hit the wall at the 400-foot mark and had to settle for triples each time.

But Katella has played in the park for some time, and Coach Tim McMenamin can never remember a run on triples like this season.

“We were talking about it the other day,” he said. “We’ve got some guys who can hit and some guys who can run. But we’ve had them in the past. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. I don’t know.”

Westminster High has won its last six Sunset League games, outscoring opponents, 48-13, in that time. The streak has pushed the school into a three-way tie for first place with Fountain Valley and Ocean View, all at 7-4.

The reason for the surge seems to be the return of pitcher/outfielder Brian Stubbs, who was suspended for five games because of academic problems.

Stubbs has won two games during the streak and is batting .325. But more than the numbers, Westminster Coach Ken Ostrowski said Stubbs provided “the glue that held us together.”

Westminster is 14-2-1 with Stubbs playing. Another pitcher/outfielder, Brett Grebe, is hitting .426, and last week, won two games as a pitcher, striking out 15 batters, including 12 Edison batters on Tuesday.