Title These Players as Class Acts

Emotions ran high this week on baseball and softball fields all over Southern California.

Some teams finished the season with a disappointing loss; others advanced further in the playoffs or won a section title.

Winning, of course, is the easy part.

Losing is a lot tougher, as any competitor knows.

But when winners go out of their way to acknowledge the pain experienced by the losers, there’s proof that many coaches and parents are doing a stand-up job of teaching their players and teenagers the spirit of healthy competition.

One such scene took place Tuesday, after El Camino Real defeated top-seeded Kennedy in the City Section 4-A Division softball championship at UCLA.

For El Camino Real’s Ramona Shelburne, good sportsmanship went beyond the postgame handshake. Shelburne, El Camino Real’s only senior, gave Sandra Durazo, Kennedy’s ace pitcher, a hug after the game. Then she showered her with compliments for several minutes.

“I felt really bad for her,” Shelburne said. “I thought she pitched well enough to win and I told her that.”

Durazo, bound for San Diego State on scholarship, took the loss--her second in a row to El Camino Real in the title game--hard for several reasons: It was her last high school game, the Golden Cougars made six errors behind her, and it was a much closer and intense contest than the 6-0 game in 1996.

Shelburne, a four-year starter headed to Stanford, respects hard-working, talented athletes like Durazo. She understood Durazo’s disappointment and wanted to somehow alleviate her pain.

“You see her crying and, gosh, she pitched so well and she lost again,” Shelburne said. “I had to go and sympathize with her.”

Durazo wasn’t the only pitcher in tears after a season-ending game last week. Camarillo ace Cindy Ball, who injured her thumb in practice on Wednesday and was unable to play in a quarterfinal Thursday against Thousand Oaks, was also distraught--but for different reasons.

“It hurts not being able to help your team,’ said Ball, a junior right-hander who watched the game Thursday with her right hand in a splint.

This time, it was Thousand Oaks senior first baseman Erika Hanson whose sportsmanship went beyond the expected.

Hanson, headed to Arizona, went out of her way to join Ball in right field after Thousand Oaks defeated Camarillo, 2-0. Ball was sitting on the grass wiping away tears when Hanson crouched down beside her, gave her a hug and some positive words.

And to think, just a few years ago the postgame handshake was not allowed in Marmonte League games.

Hopefully officials never outlaw postgame hugs or condolences.

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El Camino Real baseball Coach Mike Maio won his third City 4-A championship in five years at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, but he didn’t win over ushers who manned the gate to the Conquistadores’ dugout on the first-base side.

Twenty minutes before the start of the game against Banning, Maio waved down his two nephews to come join the team in the dugout. It is, after all, pretty cool to watch the game from the dugout.

But an uncompromising usher refused to let the two preteens on the field--even for a quick look at the dugout.

“And they came 1,200 miles just to see the game,” Maio said.

As soon as Maio’s sister was informed that El Camino Real defeated Chatsworth in the semifinal on Tuesday, the Sante Fe, N.M., resident made the arrangements and flew with her sons Wednesday to Los Angeles to see her brother coach at Dodger Stadium.

Maio continued to plead with the ushers before his sister stepped in and lowered the boom.

“My sister said, ‘Just take care of business,’ ” Maio said.

His team did, coming back to defeat Banning, 13-11.

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Maio and El Camino Real softball Coach Neils Ludlow have been coaching at the same school long enough to know the importance of supporting each other’s program.

Maio, whose Conquistadores defeated Chatsworth, 9-6, Tuesday, called The Times less than two hours after the victory to find out if the El Camino Real softball team won the City softball title.

Less than 24 hours after that call, Ludlow positioned himself--with a full complement of peanuts--in the front row between the El Camino Real dugout and the plate at Dodger Stadium and cheered for a Conquistador softball-baseball sweep.

Neither coach thought they were doing anything out of the ordinary.

“Maybe [I’m] an old-timer, but I always thought that’s the way it’s supposed to be,’ Maio said.