Kennedy Upends Granada Hills With a Title and Youth on the Line

What catches one’s eye inside Kennedy High’s baseball program are the photographs on Page 3, where a bunch of future Golden Cougar players are featured in Little League attire.

A couple of players are missing teeth, and most are holding huge bats. Baseballs appear as large as softballs, gloves as big as peach baskets. Caps cover the whole noggin, and tough-guy looks show on fuzzy cheeks.

The thing is, for the players now at Kennedy, these photos aren’t that darn old.

Despite fielding a batting order with just one senior, the Golden Cougars hammered Granada Hills, 14-8, on Thursday to win a showdown for the North Valley League title before a packed house at Kennedy.

Sure, the Golden Cougars are nowhere near their golden years. But in the clutch, they have glittered.

“We’re not rooks any more,” said outfielder Jeff Tagliaferri, one of four sophomores in the starting lineup.

The cover of the program features a game picture of Coach Manny Alvarado, patiently standing with hands on hips in the third-base coaching box. Taking a lead off third is junior outfielder John Davis, who like most of his teammates doesn’t seem to have much respect for his elders.

Davis, who hit a decisive grand slam Tuesday against the same team, ripped a three-run, inside-the-park home run Thursday to give him seven runs batted in for the week. Not bad for a leadoff hitter who was batting .125 halfway through the season.

“We’ve taken quite a few leaps since then,” Alvarado said of the team’s sluggish start. “Shoot, we were picked dead last.”

For half an inning, Granada Hills (16-8-1, 11-5-1 in league play) seemed poised to issue last rites. The Highlanders jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first as Kennedy starter Cody Beaumaster (7-3) struggled to find the plate. Beaumaster allowed 10 hits but struck out 10 and finished the game.

“In a way that start was a blessing,” said Alvarado, whose teams have won two league titles and finished second in his three seasons as coach. “We were real positive and real cocky, and that woke us up.”

Three outs later, Kennedy (16-8, 12-5) had essentially done just that. The Golden Cougars scored eight times in their half of the first and drove starter Heath McElwee (3-3) from the game before the second out was recorded. Chris Markey relieved with the score tied, 3-3, and the bases loaded but fared no better.

Markey issued a walk, hit a batter, recorded a strikeout, surrendered a three-run triple to Bill Ramirez and walked Tagliaferri. McElwee then re-entered in relief of his reliever.

Kennedy scored six times in the fourth to put the game away, with Davis and Jason Makohon both hitting inside-the-park homers, the second time two Kennedy players have accomplished the feat in an inning this season.

Davis’ home run gave Kennedy a 14-3 lead. Alvarado said his assistant, Andy Montes, sensed how much the players wanted the title.

“Andy said that when (Davis) crossed the plate on that home run that the look on his face scared him,” said Alvarado, whose team won a City Section 4-A Division title in 1989, his first year.

“This bunch will be better than the ’89 group before they’re through. They have that same look in their eyes when it counts.”

It’s evident in the pictures too.