U.S OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : ROUNDUP : Mouchawar’s Goals Not Enough in Water Polo Loss

It was just one game and yet it summed up an entire tournament.

At least for the West. Larry Mouchawar of Mission Hills scored four goals Tuesday night at the Koury Natatorium in Chapel Hill, N.C., but his West team lost to the South, 12-7.

It’s been the same story all week here in the U.S. Olympic Festival water polo competition. Nobody seems able to stop Mouchawar, yet he and his teammates don’t seem to be able to stop anybody.

Mouchawar has scored 12 goals in his team’s six games, yet all the West has to show is one win, three losses and two ties.

As a result, the West is out of the hunt for a gold medal.

That’s news.

The West has won the past four Festival gold medals and six of the seven since water polo became a Festival sport.

The West, in general, and Southern California, in particular, are known for dominating water sports, but that may have been part of the problem.

“I think just being from the West made us confident,” Mouchawar said. “I think it was true in a lot of ways that we thought we would win just because we were all from the West.”

SPEED SKATING

Seventeen-year-old Charles King flew cross country to compete in the Olympic Festival’s speed-skating competition.

For what happened to him Monday, though, he might just as well have stayed home in Studio City.

The day didn’t start off badly. In the 1,500-meter preliminary at the Greensboro Coliseum, King won the third heat in 2:45.63.

So much for the highlights. King was disqualified in the semifinals for illegally bumping in a turn.

He didn’t even get that far in the 500-meter event. King fell in the prelims and didn’t finish.

King’s brother, Keith, also of Studio City, failed to make it out of the 500 prelims, clocking in at 51.26

TABLE TENNIS

At the Raleigh Civic Center, Carol Davidson of Studio City teamed with Sophia Gorin of Randallstown, Md., to capture third place Tuesday and a bronze medal with a 21-16, 21-13 victory over Jasmine Wang of East Brunswick, N.J., and Shirley Woo of Houston.

Davidson and Gorin were 3-0 in the first round but lost in the semifinals to the team of Diana Gee of San Carlos, Calif., and Carol Plato of Watertown, Mass., 21-16, 21-14.

The other Valley participant in the event, Kim Gilbert of Van Nuys, had to default in her third match of the first round because of a sore shoulder after she and her partner, Vicky Wong of Elmhurst, N.Y., had lost their first two matches.

In the final round of the overall team portion of the table tennis competition Sunday, Davidson split her four matches. One of her wins was over Gilbert, 22-20, 21-11, the only loss for the Van Nuys player in three matches that day.

Monday, the format switched to mixed doubles.

Gilbert teamed with Lim Ming Chui of Bedford, Mass., but again injury intervened.

This time, it wasn’t as serious.

After she and her partner won their first match, they had to default the second when Gilbert suffered a pulled leg muscle.

But she was able to recover for the next match. As a matter of fact, she recovered sufficiently to team with Chui for another victory.

They eventually got as far as the battle for the bronze medal but lost that to Bob Powell of Columbus, Ohio, and Lisa Gee of San Carlos, 21-19, 21-14.

Davidson teamed with David Sakai of Lanham, Md., in mixed doubles, but they were knocked out of the tournament by losing two of their first three matches.

SOFTBALL

Debbie Langevain of Northridge went 3 for 3 with three runs batted in, and Barbara Jordan, also from Northridge, added two hits at Lions Park in Raleigh to power the West past the East, 7-1, Saturday, the first day of women’s action.

The West since has gone on to win four of its six games and will meet the East tonight in the gold medal game.

BASKETBALL

Trevor Wilson’s West squad has managed to win only one of three games at the Festival, but Wilson, the former Cleveland High basketball standout now playing for Walt Hazzard at UCLA, has won new fans with his play.

Wilson is averaging 7.3 rebounds from his forward position, third-best total in the Festival, along with 10.7 points per game, the second-best scoring average on the West squad behind Tom Lewis’ 18.7. Wilson and his teammates will play in the bronze medal game this afternoon at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

HANDBALL

Renee Brum of Camarillo scored two goals and Kirsten Smith of Saugus added one as the West blasted the East, 19-8, Tuesday night in the opening team handball match at Carmichael Gym on the North Carolina State campus.

The West, coached by Darleen Branigan of Canoga Park, blew the game open with 11 goals in the second half.

FIGURE SKATING

Operating under a new team format, Lori Blasko of Westlake Village and Todd Sand of Panorama City combined their efforts Saturday at the Greensboro Coliseum with Kathy Keeley of San Diego and Joseph Mero of Costa Mesa to collect 107.80 points for the North, placing it second in the four-team pairs short program behind the South (108 points).

On Sunday at the Coliseum, before a capacity crowd of 13,397, Blasko, Sand, Keeley and Mero were awarded a total of 109.20 points in the pairs long program, again leaving the North runner-up to the South (109.40).

CANOE/KAYAK

On Sunday, Fred Spaulding of Newbury Park, joined by brother Dave of Ventura, became the most prodigious individual medal winner to date among the Valley contingent, which numbers more than 70.

The Spauldings, bronze medal winners Saturday in a 1,000-meter canoe event, won a silver medal Sunday at 500 meters, crossing the distance at Lake Wheeler in 1:55.77. That left the brothers trailing only Jim Terrell of Milford, Ohio, and Rod McLain of Meriden, N.H., who covered the 500 meters in 1:50.73. Fred Spaulding had a shot at yet another canoe medal Sunday, but couldn’t quite pull it off in singles, losing by a thousandth of a second.

After winning the third heat of the 500-meter singles competition in 2:05.9, Spaulding wound up fourth in the final, despite having the same official clocking--2:07.58--as bronze medal winner Greg Steward of Williamsburg, Ohio. Steward was ruled to have just edged Spaulding.

In kayak singles at 500 meters, Gus Peterson of Agoura finished fifth in 1:50.37.