The Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : Morningside Girls’ Team Is Blossoming

The future seems to have arrived a year early for the girls’ basketball team at Inglewood Morningside High School. All of which bodes poorly for the competition in the Southern Section.

Coach Frank Scott’s team is 16-2 and ranked third in The Times’ poll, the losses coming against No. 2 Lynwood in the Artesia Tournament and No. 6 Woodland Hills Louisville in the Thousand Oaks Tournament. All this while starting a still-growing 6-foot 4-inch freshman at center and a converted center at power forward.

In first-year player Lisa Leslie, Morningside seems to have the player of the future. She needs to add weight and aggressiveness, but, while averaging 10 points, 9 rebounds and 6 blocked shots a game, has already become a pretty good player for the present.

“She’ll get the eye of a lot more people before she’s through,” Scott said.

“She is still learning and has a long way to go. But she’s on the right road.”

Leslie’s arrival allowed Scott to move 5-11 junior Shaunda Greene, a second-team All-Southern Section pick last season, to forward. All she has done is average 17 points and 11 rebounds and show Leslie the way with some not-so-subtle advice during Monarch practices.

Greene gets physical with the rookie.

“They’ve come to a lot of arguments,” Scott said. “But I guess you get that if you get a bunch of girls together anyway. She (Leslie) doesn’t back down like she used to. She knows she has improved just by playing against Shaunda.”

Today, they will be back on the same side when the Monarchs play host to El Segundo in a Pioneer League game at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, they are at Compton Centennial before taking a break from league play with a Saturday night game at Hawthorne.

Back in September, it would have been hard to find two football players receiving more national publicity than Leonard Russell of Long Beach Poly and Emmitt Smith of Pensacola (Fla.) Escambia. Come January recruiting season, though, and the line of admirers is not so long.

Russell got eight votes in the annual Best in the West poll published Sunday by the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the second-highest number, but did not make the top 100 in the country in ratings by college coaches for Max Emfinger of the National High School Football Recruiting Service. Smith’s name was nowhere to be found, either.

Ten Californians did make Emfinger’s list, the third-best showing behind Florida (14) and Texas (12), including linemen James Rae of Anaheim Esperanza, Brian Kelly of South Torrance and Scott Spalding of El Toro, linebacker Sean Howard of Encino Crespi, running back George Hemingway of Colton and Chuck Robinson of San Bernardino San Gorgonio. Robinson, who got just two votes in the Best in the West, is rated as the No. 3 tight end in the country by Emfinger--not bad considering he played there in only five games this season.

Randy Simmons, a 6-2, 220-pound running back from McKinney, Tex., is rated as the No. 1 prospect in the nation. He rushed for 2,500 yards this season and doesn’t figure to stray far from the area for college.

Spalding and defensive back Eugene Burkhalter of Long Beach Poly, who took a recruiting trip to Arizona State over the weekend, lead the Best in the West rankings with nine votes, out of a possible 10. Then comes a logjam for second place at eight votes, with Russell, Hemingway, running backs Eric Bieniemy of La Puente Bishop Amat and Tommy Booker of Vista, linebacker/wide receiver Junior Seau of Oceanside and receiver Patrick Rowe of San Diego Lincoln. Bieniemy has already made a verbal commitment to Colorado.

Football prospects can sign letters of intent on Feb. 11.

Rick Ready’s departure as football coach at St. Paul of Santa Fe Springs was not unexpected. The only question seemed to be whether he would quit or get fired first, what with his desire to return to the college ranks and rumors hovering that he would be replaced almost as soon as Father Robert Gallagher arrived as the new principal in midseason.

Last week, Gallagher made the move and fired Ready after a 6-5 season, with the losses coming against Carson, Loyola, Bellflower St. John Bosco, La Puente Bishop Amat and, in the first round of the Big Five Conference playoffs, Long Beach Millikan. Who could have done better with that schedule?

Gallagher would only say: “I feel it is apropos to make the change now. . . . We appreciate the contributions Coach Ready has made.” The school then issued a statement advertising the opening and said it hoped to fill the spot by March 1.

“I’m a little bit bitter,” said Ready, who went 13-9 in his two seasons, both playoff appearances after the Swordsmen had missed in the three years before his arrival. “But I was looking to move on, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.”

And what better place to find a college job opening than the NCAA convention? He went to his first three years ago in Nashville, Tenn., and this month made the short trip to San Diego in hopes of making some contacts. He talked with Dick Tomey, like Ready a former assistant at Miami of Ohio, before Tomey had been tabbed to take over the Arizona program, but realizes that he needs patience as much as connections at this point.

“It can get real depressing if you take it too seriously, and you see how desperate some people get,” he said. “You can see it. You’ve got some people who always make the all-lobby team, guys who hang around in the lobby handing out their resumes. I wasn’t quite all-lobby, but I was close.”

Prep Notes Linebacker Chuck Robinson of San Gorgonio has already visited Stanford and Arizona State and has trips planned to UCLA and California. . . . Theresa Cross of Brea-Olinda, normally a third-string player, had 38 assists last Tuesday in a 119-26 win over Anaheim to break the Southern Section girls’ single-game record of 32 by Renee Overton of Riverside Poly in 1982. Carrie Egan scored 56 points in that game to set an Orange County record. “It was embarrassing for everybody,” Brea Coach Mark Trakh said. “I was really uncomfortable the whole game. We’d run the shot clock down 29 seconds and throw up a prayer, but then we’d get the rebound. I found myself yelling at (the Brea players) not to shoot.” The next night, the Anaheim boys team failed to score in the first quarter and lost to Brea by 40. . . . Kevin Franklin of Woodland Hills Taft has scored 30 points or more in nine games this season, including a school-record 43 Jan. 9 against Reseda and 39 last Friday against El Camino Real. He has scored 38 five times and went into Friday’s game averaging 30.8 points and 7.8 rebounds while shooting 64% from the field. . . . The Sunset League and Huntington Beach had two of the top three boys’ soccer teams in the Southern Section 4-A Division last week with No. 1 Marina and No. 3 Edison. Simi Valley was sandwiched between, and South Torrance and West Torrance of the Bay League were Nos. 4 and 5. A third Sunset team from Huntington Beach, Ocean View, also received votes, as did another from the Bay, Palos Verdes.