The Acorn received a great letter last week from Marshall Abernathy of Agoura Hills regarding the Marmonte League's announcement of Agoura's Scott Deck as its baseball Coach of the Year.

Abernathy wrote that Newbury Park head coach Scott Drootin should've won the award after leading the Panthers to a 13-1 league record and the regular-season championship.

I totally agree.

In fact, it's a topic I've been pondering for some time and I applaud Abernathy for having the guts to bring it up, especially considering he's an Agoura resident.

In his letter Abernathy asks the question: "How did this happen?"

After some research, I can explain.

Following the conclusion of the regular season but prior to the playoffs, seven Marmonte League head coaches and a Moorpark assistant coach gathered and voted for the league MVP, Pitcher of the Year, first and second team players and, of course, the Coach of the Year.

The initial vote for the top coach produced a three-way tie between Drootin, Deck and Thousand Oaks skipper Frank Mutz. Rather than make it a co-award, the coaches opted to conduct another vote in search of an outright winner.

When the second ballot was cast, Deck won in a landslide.

The first problem with the outcome is obvious: Agoura, ranked No. 1 in the nation by Baseball America during the first month of

the regular season, finished four games behind Newbury Park in the final standings.

NPHS has scoreboard on the Chargers, too.

The first time the teams played this season at Newbury Park in early April, Panther southpaw An- drew Lambo was masterful on the mound and Brett Fick hit a tworun home run off Agoura's Jason Stoffel to give NPHS a 2-1 victory.

In the rematch five weeks later at Agoura, Newbury Park hit four home runs and squashed the Chargers, 11-2.

With Newbury Park winning the Marmonte League championship and beating Agoura twice during the regular season, it should've been a slam dunk for Drootin to earn Coach of the Year honors.

Unfortunately, the coaches didn't agree.

Look, Deck did a masterful job handling expectations and injuries throughout the year. He managed Agoura to four postseason victories and had the team within three outs of claiming its first CIF baseball banner in school history.

It was a fantastic run by Deck, his staff and his players.

When evaluating the situation, however, you must remember that these votes are tabulated before the playoffs start and are meant to reflect regular-season results only.

Based on that criteria, the league's coaches obviously chose popularity over production in 2006. - Stephen Dorman can be reached at sdorman@theacorn.com