Orange County Prep Review : Mater Dei Takes Show on the Road

Come join the Mater Dei High School basketball team, those prep jet-setters, on their whirlwind week of hoops and hoopla.

At 8:30 tonight the top-ranked Monarchs (8-0) will play Capistrano Valley in the semifinals of the Orange Holiday Tournament.

Should they win, they’ll play Tuesday night at 8:30 for the tournament championship in the Hutton Sports Center.

The next morning the team will fly from Orange County to Little Rock, Ark., where they’re scheduled to arrive at about 4 p.m. CST.

After an hourlong bus ride from Little Rock to Pine Bluff and time enough to drop off their baggage, the Monarchs will be go to the Pine Bluff Convention Center for an 8:30 p.m. game in the King Cotton Holiday Tournament.

Sounds exciting: A tournament championship game in Orange County one night; another game in one of the nation’s most prestigious tournaments at Pine Bluff the next.

“The kids look at it as a fun adventure, but I don’t think they realize how much (travel) takes out of your legs,” said Gary McKnight, Mater Dei coach. “It’s got to take a toll.”

The Monarchs can’t afford to be flat Wednesday night. The King Cotton tournament features four of the country’s top 15 teams (according to USA Today), including top-ranked Flint Hill Prep of Oakton, Va.

If Mater Dei is to play the high-caliber competition, which McKnight said is the object of the trip, the Monarchs must win their first game against either Pine Bluff High or Whitehaven High of Memphis, Tenn., who meet in Tuesday night’s first round.

After a day off, the semifinals will be played Friday and the championship game Saturday. Mater Dei, which is ranked ninth in the nation, Flint Hill Prep, 12th-ranked Christian Brothers Academy of Lincroft, N.J., and 14th-ranked Hialeah Lakes High of Miami received first-round byes and will begin play in Wednesday’s quarterfinals of the 12-team tournament.

There are no easy games, though, as Ocean View Coach Jim Harris will attest. The Seahawks played here last year and were upset by Pine Bluff, 61-57, in the first round.

And that was after a full day of rest. Ocean View arrived the day before the tournament started but lost two of its three games, including the consolation championship.

Blame it On Rio: Robert Webster, Newport Harbor swim coach, isn’t sure what he did to deserve it, but he’ll be spending New Year’s Eve in Rio de Janeiro as part of an all-expenses-paid trip to Brazil to hold a swimming clinic this week.

A family in Capanduva, Brazil, impressed with Webster’s influence on their 12-year-old daughter while Webster was coaching at Laguna Beach High last year, will pay for the trip.

Webster was swimming with some friends in the Artists’ pool last December when Dalila Ayala, a Brazilian girl who was visiting relatives in Laguna Beach, came by the pool with her grandparents.

Webster struck up a conversation with the three and, after he learned that Dalila was a swimmer, hed suggested that she come work out with the Artists’ team.

Ayala turned out to be as good as many of Webster’s varsity swimmers, so Webster, an age-group coach with the Mission Viejo Nadadores, began bringing her to practices with the club team three times a week and even entered her in a meet.

Ayala returned to Brazil last spring. In September, Webster discovered that Ayala’s mother and some friends had raised enough money to bring Webster to their home town for a clinic.

Plans were finalized last week when Webster received his plane tickets in the mail.

“I can’t believe it,” Webster said. “I must have done something right this year to get this late Christmas present. I’ve never even heard of Capanduva. I sounded like Katmandu, so I figured, hey, I’m there.”

Webster flew to Rio on Saturday and will stay there until Friday. Then he’ll head to Capanduva for a six-day clinic for both kids (ages 7 to 12) and coaches. He’ll be staying with Ayala’s family in Capanduva and with one of Ayala’s uncles in Rio.

No Parking: Scott Orloff’s driveway would seem an unlikely place to hold an El Dorado High School reunion, but his two-on-two basketball tournament has become just that.

Orloff, an assistant football coach at El Dorado, will stage his eighth annual tournament from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday at Placentia.

Notable El Dorado alums expected are UCLA football star Craig Rutledge, Houston Oiler tight end Chris Dressel, former Cal State Fullerton football players Larry Baker and Sean Foy, Golden Hawks’ football Coach Carl Sweet and basketball Coach Terry Conley.

“We started out with four teams and it’s grown to 16 teams this year,” Orloff said. “We have guys from 20 to 40 years old playing. It’s the most intense, physical basketball you’ll ever see.”

Prep Notes

Foothill soccer Coach Robin Winstone, who led the Knights to the 4-A championship during the 1984-85 season, resigned on Dec. 15 to pursue other job interests. “He just felt he couldn’t commit any more time (to coaching),” Foothill Athletic Director Bob Osborne said. The Knights finished third in the Century League in Winstone’s first season (1984-85) and won the league championship last season. Winstone was replaced by Greg Murphy, who has been an assistant soccer coach at Foothill for four seasons. . . . The Bolsa Grande High School football team, which beat Valencia, 24-7, for the Southern Section Central Conference championship on Dec. 12, will be honored at the next meeting of the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education Jan. 6. Coach Greg Shadid, his assistants and the Matador players will be recognized during the 7:30 p.m. ceremony in the Boardroom of the Education Center, 10331 Stanford Ave. Bolsa Grande is the first Garden Grove district high school to win a Southern Section football championship. . . . El Toro lineman Scott Spalding has been named to Bally’s High School All-American team. The 100-player team was selected by high school coaches in the National High School Athletic Coaches Assn. . . . Kirk Ayers of Western High has been invited to compete in the 60-yard dash in the 28th Sunkist Invitational track meet scheduled for Jan. 16 in the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Ayers’ best time last season was 9.8 in the 100-yard dash.