Girls’ basketball: Miller, Cajon rivalry escalates off court

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Fontana Miller, ranked No. 3 by The Times, and No. 13 Cajon will be at the same place today playing basketball, but the two girls’ basketball teams -- which seem to have become rivals without even playing each other -- won’t be playing at the same time.

Miller will be playing in the first game of the Inland Empire Challenge at Cajon High, and the host Cowgirls will be playing in the last.

The reason they won’t be playing each other in the marquee game?

Miller didn’t want to play Cajon.

This melodrama goes back to the Ayala Extravaganza, when Cajon Coach Mark Lehman wasn’t shy about letting it be known that Miller didn’t want to play Cajon. Lehman implied that Miller was avoiding playing tough competition, when in fact Miller Coach Mel Wilkins wanted to play a team better than Cajon. That’s what he did: Miller instead played Millikan -- which had earlier beaten Long Beach Poly -- and lost, 61-52.

A week earlier, Cajon had lost to Millikan, too, 60-52

The loophole that Miller used for getting out of playing Cajon in the IE Challenge was that the original contract for today’s series of games matched schools from Riverside County against those from San Bernardino County.

When a couple of Riverside County teams backed out of the one-day extravaganza, it opened the door for two San Bernardino County teams to play.

So now, with Miller in Cajon’s event, Lehman had a chance to match his team against Miller. But Wilkins, with the support of his athletic director, said no. They instead held Lehman to the contract: A game against a Riverside County school. So the best team in the event -- at least the highest-ranked -- will be matched against the worst.

That’s classic.

When I first heard that Miller didn’t want to play Cajon -- or more accurately, Wilkins didn’t want to play Lehman -- I thought it was silly. Just play, and may the best team win. Both teams will be fired up, it’s a game many people would like to see, and in my opinion, Miller would win anyway. Just go out there, take care of business, and get it out of the way. Swat the gnat out of the air, so to speak.

But then I talked to Wilkins. He didn’t want to play Cajon on principle. He didn’t appreciate being called out in the media the way he was by Lehman preceding the Ayala Extravaganza. Then, he didn’t like being matched against Cajon -- another San Bernardino County team -- without being consulted.

And I had to admit, I understood his point, especially the first one.

‘It’s about principle and politics,’ Wilkins said. ‘If you’re going to call somebody [me] out in the newspaper, it aint’ going to happen. All you need is a simple phone call. ‘Let’s match up and make it happen.’ If he called and said things aren’t working out ... but for him to make the game without telling me, that ain’t right.

‘I teach my kids, you ignore stupidity. He needs to play us more than I need to play him. The only person who would be happy is him, and I’m not going to make him happy.

‘I feel sorry for the girls. They deserve to play a team like us.’

So the marquee games are Riverside North (16-7) vs. No. 12 Ayala (20-4), and Etiwanda (18-6) vs. Cajon (21-3). Meanwhile, Miller (19-2) plays Rancho Verde (10-13), which has the worst record of any of the Riverside teams that are participating.

Here’s the complete schedule for today’s/Saturday’s Inland Empire Challenge:

Rancho Verde vs. Miller, noon
Corona Santiago vs. Summit, 1:30 p.m.
Great Oak vs. Los Osos, 3 p.m.
Paloma Valley vs. Colony, 4:30 p.m.
Riverside North vs. Ayala, 6 p.m.
Etiwanda vs. Cajon, 7:30 p.m.

-- Martin Henderson

-- Image from www.paultrippministries.org