The Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : Marshall Fundamental’s Season Comes to a Stop With Nelson

This was going to be a nice, simple story about a basketball player. One of the best girl players in Southern California, as a matter of fact, if not the entire state.

Playing for Marshall Fundamental, a 1-A Division team, Cherie Nelson led the Southern Section in scoring this season with a 32.7-average and was second in rebounds at 22.8.

Don’t let that 1-A competition put you off, though. A 6-foot 3-inch forward, Nelson is No. 1 on USC’s list of area recruits, according to Trojan assistant Kathy Olivier. Nelson has already visited Arizona and LSU, and is also being strongly recruited by Cal State Long Beach and Nevada Las Vegas.

This was supposed to be the best time of the season for Marshall Fundamental, the Small Schools champion two years ago and a semifinalist last season under rookie Coach Marsha Wilson. This was supposed to be their year.

“We didn’t think there was a team out there who could beat us,” Wilson said.

There was a team out there who could beat them, though. Bishop did it Saturday night, 61-51, at Pasadena High School.

If it hadn’t been Bishop, it could have been any one of a number of other teams. Nelson couldn’t play Saturday night, and that made Marshall Fundamental an easy mark, even though sophomore guard Kelly Collins had 26 points, 20 rebounds, 7 steals and 6 assists.

Nelson arrived at the game, not at all ready to play, with about four minutes remaining and Marshall down by 18 points. A few hours earlier, while driving to the game after a stop at a fast-food restaurant, Nelson and her boyfriend, USC athlete Marcus Cotton, were injured in an accident with a parked car.

Nelson said she was not wearing a seat belt. She was thrown against the windshield and dashboard. She needed seven stitches for facial cuts and more for cuts on her knees. A mild concussion also required a brief stay at Huntington Memorial Hospital.

When Nelson limped into the gym at Pasadena and went to sit on the bench, Wilson said, most of the team and some of the people in the stands started crying.

It seems entirely likely that the Eagles, 10-point losers after playing without Nelson, would have beaten Bishop if she had played. Nobody knows that better than she does, though, and that’s what hurts the most. She spent practically all of Sunday in bed and had to write a note to Wilson, a longtime friend, because she could not bear to face her.

“She’s been really depressed because she feels like she has let me down, the team down and the whole school down,” Wilson said.

“We really wanted to win this game, but the most important thing is that she was there at all.”

If Covina’s Frank Trujillo wins the state 122-pound wrestling title Saturday at the University of Pacific, it will be as much by strategy as ability.

After qualifying for the Southern Section 4-A final Feb. 16, thereby earning a trip to the Masters meet the next week, Trujillo forfeited to Keith Harvey of Newbury Park. Then Saturday, in the Masters competition at Westminster High, Trujillo made it to the final, but, with his trip to Stockton wrapped up, forfeited to Harvey again.

The idea has been to rest Trujillo’s injured left shoulder until the state meet. He went into the season having already won two Southern Section titles, so a third was not his goal. But in his first three years at Covina, he finished fourth, second and third, respectively, in California, and a championship is what he wants this season.

He has never been far behind the competition in the past, either. All of his losses in state competition were to the eventual champion by one point or a criteria decision, a referee’s judgment in overtime.

Prep Notes Junior center Robbie Miller of Huntington Beach Voyagers Christian, which claims an enrollment of 18 students, won the Southern Section scoring title this season by averging 32.2 points a game and led all rebounders with 17.1 a game. Mater Dei’s Tom Lewis was second in scoring with 31.8, followed by Phillip Sanchez of Arroyo (31.3), Kevin Kurz of Schurr (28.8) and Ventura Temple Christian’s Jeff Boehm (26.6). . . . Michelle Carter of Magnolia followed Cherie Nelson in girls’ scoring, with April Marion of La Sierra (31.2), Francis Palmore of Cajon (29.0) and Arrowhead Christian’s Janelle Anderson (28.8) rounding out the top five. Natasha Parks of Regina Caeli led all rebounders with a 23.1 average. . . . Lewis is expected to play in a couple of national all-star games, the Dapper Dan April 2 in Pittsburgh and the McDonald’s April 13 in Dallas. The latter was held last year at Pauley Pavilion. . . . Word is that Lewis has narrowed his college choices to, in no particular order, UCLA, Syracuse, Arizona State and Nevada Las Vegas. The Sun Devils and Rebels may have an advantage, though, since they are willing and/or able to make a package deal for Lewis and his surrogate father, Pat Barrett.

If Lewis is out of reach, USC will concentrate on 6-6 forward-center Eric (Hank) Gathers (23 points and 14 rebounds a game) from Dobbins Tech in Philadelphia, the nation’s 12th-ranked team by USA today; New York’s Long Island Lutheran standout Marco Baldi, a 6-11, 250-pounder nicknamed Mount Baldi; and Alex Austin from Gridley, Calif. Baldi, a foreign exhange student from Italy who played at Woodbridge in Irvine last season, is drawing attention from many major colleges, including St. John’s, Georgetown and Notre Dame. . . . One player who has gotten very little attention from the colleges is San Pedro’s Otis Livingston, who has a 15-point average, speed, ball-handling ability and a team in the City 3-A final Friday at the Sports Arena. The knock against him is his height, 5-11. . . . Among the most relieved people that New Jersey linebacker Quintus McDonald finally chose his college, even if it was Penn State, were those working in the USC sports information office. They stopped counting after getting 75 phone calls Feb. 14, the day McDonald said he would choose between the Trojans and Nittany Lions.