Dream Matchup Close to Coming True

There’s no denying that the dream matchup of the basketball season would be Southern Section 5-A champion Santa Ana Mater Dei against City 4-A winner Crenshaw. No. 1 in California against No. 2. Orange County against the Central City. The control game against the fast break.

Even Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight is openly rooting for the showdown.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he said Saturday night at the Sports Arena just after the Monarchs had defeated Gardena Serra for their second straight title. “I want to play Crenshaw. Let’s get to it.

“I mean it. . . . It would be good for the state to have the top two teams play.”

Maybe his strong desire has something to do with last year, when Mater Dei went 29-0, won the first 5-A championship, had a star player in Tom Lewis and still could only sit back and watch as Crenshaw won the state championship because the Southern Section did not compete in the tournament.

On the other hand, junior transfer LeRon Ellis wasn’t even in California last year, having attended school in Portland, Ore., but he is just as excited at the thought of playing Crenshaw.

“I’m ready to go,” he said after being chosen Most Valuable Player against Serra. “I don’t want to quit now. We’re on a roll.”

A Crenshaw-Mater Dei meeting for the Division I Southern California Regional title Saturday at the Sports Arena and the right to play in Oakland for the state championship is not a lock, but it is the next closest thing. To say that it will take an upset for either team to lose is a gross understatement.

But it could happen. Crenshaw will play the winner of tonight’s Pasadena Muir-Poway game Thursday at Cal State Dominguez Hills, and one of those two schools may be wise to put in a call to West Orange, N.J., to find out how it’s done.

“We just about played a perfect game,” said assistant coach Pete Butler of Seton Hall Prep, which broke the Cougars’ 31-game winning streak with a surprising win in December at South Carolina. “They were, and I’m sure still are, a very good team. We had to be patient; we couldn’t run with them. Basically, we had to hold the ball.

“It takes not turning the ball over against the press. It takes a very, very patient offense to work the ball for the best possible shot. If it took 20 or 25 passes each time down, that’s what we would do.”

As for Marshall or Fresno Edison, no one can speak from experience on how to beat Mater Dei. But Santa Monica came very close in the title game of the Tournament of Champions, so that will have to do on what it takes to beat the Monarchs, who have the 6-10 Ellis and 6-9 Stuart Thomas underneath.

“A little luck, I guess, “ Viking Coach Cliff Hunter said. “To beat them, they (Marshall or Edison) will definitely need a good post defense inside against the big kids. And they must be able to force the tempo and fast break as often as possible. Mater Dei wants a slowdown game.”

Trivia Time: McKnight has gone 115-5 in his four years at Mater Dei, winning three Southern Section titles along the way. Name the only four teams that have beaten him. (Answer below).

The Southern California Regionals will stretch from San Diego to Fresno tonight with four first-round games, two boys’ and two girls’.

In boys’ games, Marshall (23-3), the City 3-A champion, will play Central Section winner Fresno Edison (22-5) at 7:30 at Fresno City College, and Pasadena Muir (28-2), which won the Southern Section 4-A title Saturday night, will play San Diego 3-A champion Poway (24-3) at 8 as part of a doubleheader at San Diego State.

The first half has the Point Loma girls (27-1)taking on Southern Section 3-A winner Brea-Olinda (27-3) at 6. Point Loma’s only defeat was inflicted by Pasadena Muir in the Tournament of Champions at Santa Barbara. San Pedro (19-8), which won the City 3-A title, goes against Delano (26-0) of the Central Section at Bakersfield College at 7:30.

Edison competed in the strong Chaminade Tournament in December, beating Jefferson in the first round by 17 and losing to Southern Section 5-A runner-up Gardena Serra by six, among others. If it means anything, Jefferson lost to University by two points in the City 3-A semifinals and Marshall beat University by 15 in the title game Friday night, 62-47.

The Marshall-Edison game will be broadcast live from Fresno City College by Group W (Channel 10), audio only, with Pete Arbogast, Mike Haskins and Steve Leon.

The best all-around prep athlete in Southern California? Chuck Weatherspoon of La Habra certainly deserves consideration.

An All-Orange County pick at running back after scoring 15 touchdowns and averaging 9.9 yards a carry and leading the Highlanders to the Central Conference semifinals, he was No. 1 in the county in stolen bases during the 1985 baseball season. He played basketball for three years, but switched to wrestling this season and, as a rookie, made it all the way to the state tournament last weekend in San Jose.

Despite his inexperience and even though he weighs 35 pounds less than some of his opponents in the heavyweight division, Weatherspoon--5-8 and 215 pounds--advanced to the second round before being pinned by Trent Barnes of Fresno Clovis West, the eventual state champion.

Trivia Answer: Crenshaw, DeMatha of Hyattsville, Md.; Playa del Rey St. Bernard and Long Beach Poly twice.

St. Bernard beat Mater Dei in one of McKnight’s first games, and the Vikings had a backcourt of Chris Washington, who went on to Cal; Bobby Thompson, who went to Arizona State, and Corey Gaines, who went to UCLA. Rod Keller, who went to USC, played center. Leonard Taylor, who went to Cal, could do no better on that team than sixth man.

The losses to Crenshaw and one to Poly, in the 4-A title game at the Sports Arena in 1984, were in overtime.

Prep Notes Defending champion Loyola, which has division MVP Parker Blackman at setter and All-Southern Section pick Tom Parr at outside hitter, is ranked No. 1 in the 3-A in a preseason volleyball coaches’ poll. Laguna Beach is the top-ranked team in the 4-A. . . . The starting times for four of the six Southern California Regional finals Saturday at the Sports Arena have been changed. The girls’ Division III went from 11:15 a.m. to 10 a.m. and Division II from 2:45 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and the boys’ Division III was moved from 1 p.m. to 11:45 a.m. and the Division II from 4:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. The Division I girls’ games remain at 6:15 and the boys’ at 8. . . . Department of Incidental Information: Independence High in San Jose, site of last weekend’s State wrestling meet, was built in 1976, has red, white and blue as school colors, is nicknamed the 76ers and is located at 1776 Educational Park Drive.