Any SoCal FOFCers Follow Prep Sports?

[heybrad]

I'm curious if there are any SoCal FOFCers that follow prep sports, particularly baseball. I want to see if anybody else read about the Valley View - Lakewood ruling and what their thoughts were.

It was an interesting game for me to watch since my nephew plays for Valley View and I graduated from Lakewood.

(edit to fix the title)

[Chief Rum]

I don't pay as much attention as I used to. Now, my interest seems to be solely withg whomever UCLA is recruiting at the moment. :)

So what happened?

Chief Rum

[heybrad]

Lakewood defeated Valley View 4-3 last Tuesday. There were plenty of crappy calls throughout the game, but thats the nature of high school sports sometimes. Anyhow... heres the real story.

When Valley View arrived at Lakewood it seemed that Lakewood was holding batting practive in the outfield. This is against CIF rules which state, "The only acceptable batting warm-up will be side soft toss or batting tee work. The tosser should be on a knee and to the side of the batter. The ball should be lifted, not pitched to the batter. The penalty for batting practice with a wiffle ball, softball, baseball, etc., may be forfeiture of the game." This rule only counts for the playoffs and is in place to remove any advantage a team playing at home may have since they have more time than the traveling team.

The game was played under protest and videotape of the practice was submitted to the CIF which ruled it clearly violated the rules and Lakewood forfeited the game. It was ruled yesterday that Lakewood had to forfeit the game and Valley View plays Servite today.

I've heard a lot from both sides of the argument because of my affiliations on both sides of the fence. Lakewood says they were just playing pepper in the outfield (I was there, it wasnt pepper) and their contention also is that it wasnt batting practive in the sense that they werent in the batters box at home plate. Some say its a stupid rule and a team doesnt deserve to have its season end because of it.

My thoughts were that, yea, it may be a stupid rule, but its a rule and they were clearly trying to circumvent the rule. If you dont like the rule, work to get rid of it. I do think the penalty was a little harsh and if there was a way they could make them play again, I would love to see it.

For those that dont know (most of you), Lakewood is a long time baseball powerhouse in the Southern Section and Moreno Valley Valley View is considered a very good up and coming program thats only been around for a few years.

I was somewhat disgusted to read the comments of Spud O'Neil, the long time Lakewood coach, who basically said he constantly teaches his kids equality and fairness and now they've been screwed. It sounds to me like he's teaching them that if you dont like a rule find a way around it even if it clearly violates the spirit of the rule.