Rose Garden Resident

Sports

Vikings looking for Coast Conference repeat

By Dick Sparrer

It's tough to match a season like the West Valley College baseball team had last year, when the Vikings ran up a 38-10 record and won a Coast Conference championship.

But while it may be a tough record to match, it appears that's just what the Vikes are trying to do and they near the halfway point in the 2007 campaign.

West Valley won two of three games last week--beating Hartnell 9-1 and the College of San Mateo 7-2 and losing 10-5 to Ohlone--to improve to 16-5-1 for the year and to 6-2 in the conference. And veteran head coach Mike Perez is pretty optimistic that the Vikes have what it takes to repeat.

"We have very good pitching and good athletes across the board," he said. "If we play consistent catch and continue to get better at the plate, we will have a legitimate chance of playing at a high level."

"There is no question that pitching is the strength of this year's club," added the coach. "We have a solid catcher behind the plate in Chase Perez and good athletes in the middle of our field [shortstop Doug Porras, second baseman Nick Bertolucci and center fielder Jason Codiroli]."

Perez (Live Oak) is a sophomore returner at catcher for the Vikings. He handles a solid pitching staff that includes sophomore southpaws Carlos Hernandez (Santa Clara), David Berner (Santa Clara) and David Masinter (Live Oak), freshman left-handers Codiroli (Mitty) and Tyler Derby (Leigh) and right-hander Danny Dyer (Leland).

Hernandez won all-conference and all-Northern California honors last spring after posting a 12-1 record and a 1.94 earned run average for the Vikes. Berner (8-4, 2.59) won an all-conference second team spot and Masinter (3-1, 1.57) was a top contributor.

Adam Lara (Leland) and Brian Wendt (Leigh) are all-conference second team returners on the infield and Ben Hemeon (Gilroy) won all-conference second team honors in the outfield last year.

Porras (Live Oak) is a sophomore returner at shortstop and joins Bertolucci (Monta Vista) in the middle of the infield.

Codiroli is the club's starting center fielder in his first year as a Viking.

West Valley faces a couple of local rivals when they meet San Jose City College on March 22, 6 p.m., at San Jose PAL Stadium, and visit De Anza on March 24, noon.