Locke Losing a Grip on Track Title

Locke’s two-year lock on the City girls’ track championship may be in trouble.

Jimmy Lee, the Locke coach, believes the Saints may have lost 20 to 30 points toward a third straight title when freshman standout Kim McAllister was declared academically ineligible. In addition to the 800, where she has been ranked among the state leaders all year, she was also expected to compete in the 400 and both relays.

“It was a shock,” Lee said. “My assistant told me to sit down because he had some bad news. No, he told me to lay down, and he was right. I was real stunned when I heard about it.”

The City finals will be held May 31 at Birmingham High.

The bill by House Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) that would require students in California to maintain a C-average to be eligible for extracurricular activities, including sports, has been passed by the Assembly with one major amendment.

The no-fail clause was dropped in order to make passage easier. Brown originally patterned AB2613 after the controversial C-average, no-fail rule now used by the L.A. Unified School District.

The bill moves to the Senate, where an almost identical proposal by Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier) has already passed. Montoya’s bill is in the Assembly.

If signed into law, all California school districts will have to comply with at least minimum provisions or face budget cuts.

Southern Section teams lead all five divisions of the latest statewide baseball ratings by Cal Hi-Sports: Simi Valley (4-A), La Habra Sonora (3-A), Diamond Bar (2-A), Montclair Prep of Van Nuys (1-A) and Providence of Burbank (Class B).

All are alive as the playoffs head into the second round today, although Simi Valley (24-3) needed a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the seventh to defeat Pasadena Muir, 3-2, on Friday.

In softball, El Camino Real, which set a state record last week with its 51st straight victory, is atop Cal-Hi’s rankings in the 4-A, with Fountain Valley second and Gahr of Cerritos third. Charter Oak of Covina is No. 1 in the 2-A. Second-round games in the Southern Section playoffs are set for today for the 4-A, 1-A and Small Schools, and Wednesday for the 3-A and 2-A.

The Slam-N-Jam basketball league will play host to a major invitational July 15-19 at Pauley Pavilion that, according to director Issy Washington, will attract some of the nation’s top all-star teams.

In addition to 10 or 12 teams from Southern California, Washington says he has verbal commitments from coaches representing clubs from New York, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Seattle, Oregon, San Francisco, San Diego, Fresno and defending champion Arkansas. The national prep team from the Bahamas is also expected to compete.

Plans are also under way for a Sonny Hill-coached team from Philadelphia to come to California for a series of four all-star games against the best of the Southland at various sites in the L.A. area in the first week of July.

Twelve students from Leuzinger of Lawndale and Hawthorne were picked from auto classes to fill a pit crew for the Inner City Youth racing team in the Sports Car Club of America’s U.S. Endurance Cup series, which began April 26 at Sears Point International Raceway in Sonoma. Rules allow only five crew members over the wall at a time, so race assignments will be rotated.

The crew: Mike Ruston and Jesse Hurst of Hawthorne and John Chilcoat, James Chilcoat, Michael Riffner, Jerry Morgan, Gilbert Leal, Danny Garcia, Hasah Haj-Eid, Amer Haj-Eid, Kevin Williamson and Eric Szilas of Leuzinger.

Prep Notes The boys City team gymnastics championship will be decided tonight at University, beginning at 7 p.m. The individual finals are Thursday night at Hamilton. . . . Garden Grove defeated Nogales, 13-6, for the Southern Section 4-A badminton title Thursday at Huntington Beach, and Colton took the 3-A championship with a 16-3 win over Palm Springs. The individual finals were held the week before at Cal State Dominguez Hills, with Marc Padre of Etiwanda winning the singles title by defeating Thomas Sudibjo of Fullerton. Junior Tracy Hudson beat Garden Grove teammate Thuy Nguyen for the second straight year for the girls championship. Nogales dominated the doubles competition, with Amani Purcell and Debbie Collins winning the mixed division and Purcell and Rick Douangsity teaming for the boys title. . . . Mike Lowe, basketball coach at state Division II champion Hacienda Heights Wilson, has resigned. . . . Palisades’ win in the City boys volleyball championship Friday was its sixth title since the sport was sanctioned in 1974. . . . Running backs Eric Bieniemy of La Puente Bishop Amat, Ricky Ervins of Pasadena Muir and Leonard Russell of Long Beach Poly, defensive back Eugene Burkhalter of Long Beach Poly and defensive tackle Scott Spaulding of El Toro were named to a preseason all-star team by Scholastic Coach magazine. A total of 108 players were selected from around the country. . . . The Santa Ana Mater Dei basketball team, two-time Southern Section 5-A champion, will bypass the Tournament of Champions next season and play in the King Cotton Tournament in Pine Bluff, Ark. . . . Todd French, a football and baseball player at Anaheim Canyon, and Sara Lillevand, a member of the basketball team at Oakland Bishop O’Dowd, have been named Scholar-Athletes of the Year by the California Interscholastic Federation.