Steve Landress Serves Purpose, but Priority Lies in Another Field

Steve Landress, the football coach at Cleveland High, had intended to spend his off-season helping to coach the Cavaliers’ track team.

Instead, he is coaching the Cleveland baseball team while Coach Ray Todd recovers from heart surgery. His assistant is Marty Siegel, though you wouldn’t know that from a conversation with him.

“Marty is the one calling the shots,” Landress said. “He’s the brains and I’m the brawn.”

The Cavaliers have yet to flex their muscles in the preseason, however.

After defeating Taft, 1-0, in the opening game of the West Valley League last week, Cleveland was eliminated from the Holt-Goodman tournament in two games. The Cavaliers lost to Grant, 4-1, and to Birmingham, 7-1, on Monday.

“In all reality--and I hate to tell the seniors this--but this is a rebuilding year,” Landress said. “There just aren’t too many Bobby LaRosas out there.”

LaRosa, a shortstop, is the Cavaliers’ top player. The 6-0, 165-pound senior is hitting about .400 and is the team’s best pitcher. LaRosa pitched a complete game in the victory over Taft.

The trouble in this rebuilding season, Landress said, is that too many Cleveland runners are being left on base.

“We’ll get the bases loaded,” he said, “and then hit into a double play.”

Landress isn’t a rookie in the dugout. He coached baseball at Manual Arts for two seasons, but made his mark at the school coaching football. The Toilers won City 3-A football championships in 1983 and ’84.

And though Landress enjoys coaching the Cleveland baseball team, his major interest lies elsewhere.

“I’m not making any bones about it,” he said. “I’m a football coach.”

Trevor Wilson of Cleveland was recently named to the All-City 4-A basketball team for the third straight season. Wilson and Taft’s Kevin Franklin were the only Valley-area players to make the 4-A team.

Wilson, a 6-8 senior who will attend UCLA, led the Cavaliers to the 4-A championship game, where they lost to Crenshaw, 95-79. But as the events of the last few weeks have shown, Cleveland certainly did not disgrace itself by losing to Crenshaw.

A week after beating Cleveland, the Cougars beat Southern Section 5-A champion Mater Dei in the Southern California Regionals. Last Saturday, Crenshaw won its second straight Division I state championship, beating Oakland Bishop O’Dowd, 70-69. Cleveland beat O’Dowd earlier this season, 75-61.

Gary Gray of Granada Hills, Cliff Barnes of North Hollywood, Pat Meyer of Van Nuys and Jorge Ramos of Polytechnic were the Valley-area players selected to the All-City team in the 3-A division.

While the Cleveland boys basketball team can take some solace in losing to state champion Crenshaw, so can the Kennedy girls team.

Point Loma, the team that ended the Cougars’ season, also won the Division I state title.

Westlake pitcher Steve Zeiss doubled his number of victories in one day this week, which isn’t bad, considering he already had two wins.

In the first game of the Thousand Oaks tournament Monday, Westlake trailed L.A. Baptist by three runs entering the bottom of the seventh inning. But the Warriors rallied and sent the game into extra innings tied at 10.

Since Westlake had another game scheduled to start shortly after its game against L.A. Baptist, Coach Dennis Judd decided to put in Zeiss, the scheduled starting pitcher for game No. 2, at the start of the eighth inning.

Zeiss pitched a scoreless eighth and got the win when the Warriors scored in the bottom of the inning.

Twenty minutes later, he was on the mound against Calabasas. Zeiss pitched a complete game, a 5-3 Westlake win. His record is now 4-2.

What season is this?

Said Chatsworth baseball Coach Bob Lofrano, after his team’s 17-16 victory Monday over Notre Dame: “We kicked a field goal with a second left to win it.”

For Lofrano, the less said about the Holt-Goodman tournament game, the better. His team led, 14-3, in the fifth inning and was ahead, 16-9, entering the seventh. (Notre Dame apparently missed the extra point).

Notre Dame then scored seven runs in the top of the seventh on two hits. Chatsworth pitchers walked seven men and hit a batter in the inning.

Chatsworth won the game in the bottom of the inning on a bases-loaded infield single. “Poetic justice,” Lofrano said.

A box-score dilemma: Win to Kessler. Save to Kessler?

Granada Hills’ Mark Kessler pitched the first six innings against Westchester on Saturday in the first round of the Holt-Goodman tournament. He was taken out at the start of the seventh with the Highlanders ahead, 7-2.

Sean Casey came in to pitch, but gave up two walks, two hits, a sacrifice fly and two runs. With two men on and one out, Granada Hills Coach Darryl Stroh needed a relief pitcher. Kessler, who had moved to first base, came in and put an end to the Westchester rally.

Kessler gave up a hit for another run, but then got the next two outs in the 7-5 win.

Kessler does not, however, get the win and the save. According to the rule book, which is published by the National Federation of State High Schools Assn., a winning pitcher cannot be credited with a save.

Crespi’s golf team, which won only one Del Rey League match all last season, equaled its total this year against a most unlikely opponent.

The Celts defeated Loyola, 203-205, on Monday at the Wilshire Country Club in Hancock Park. It was the first time in four years that Crespi had defeated Loyola, last season’s league champion. The Valley Top 10

Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk Poll Team League Record 1 2 Kennedy Mid-Valley 4-0 2 4 Granada Hills Mid-Valley 4-1 3 6 Hart Foothill 10-3 4 5 Rio Mesa Channel 8-2 5 1 Simi Valley Marmonte 9-3 6 8 Chatsworth West Valley 3-2 7 7 San Fernando Mid-Valley 3-2 8 NR Polytechnic East Valley 5-2 9 9 North Hollywood East Valley 2-1 10 NR Chaminade Santa Fe 5-1