U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : ROUNDUP : Sharts Fuels a West Rally for Bronze

Simi Valley infielder Scott Sharts hadn’t done much at the Olympic Festival prior to Wednesday.

And his West team hadn’t done much through eight innings of the bronze-medal game at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill.

Both were heard from in the ninth, however, and the result was one of the biggest comebacks in Festival history.

Sharts hit a two-run homer, his second home run and third hit of the game, to begin a ninth-inning, seven-run rally that gave the West a 10-7 victory.

In taking the bronze, the West finished the Festival with a 3-1 record. The East was 0-4.

SPEED SKATING

Keith King of Studio City was part of the silver-medal winning West team in the men’s 5,000-meter relay at Greensboro Coliseum.

King teamed with Andy Gabel of Northbrook, Ill., Mark Greenwald of Park Ridge, Ill., and Paul Marchese of Connelly, N.Y., for a time of 8:00.06.

The East won the event with a Festival-record time of 7:57.68, nearly 13 seconds better than the previous mark.

Neither Keith, nor his brother Charles, also of Studio City, got out of the preliminaries in the 1,000-meter race. Both were fourth in their respective heats, Charles in 1:39.75 and Keith in 1:42.21.

WATER POLO

It wasn’t as good as gold, but Larry Mouchawar of Mission Hills could still swim away with some satisfaction after scoring three of his team’s 12 goals, including two of the five in overtime, to lead the West to a 12-7 victory over the North in the bronze-medal game at the Koury Natatorium in Chapel Hill.

The West finished the tournament 2-3-2, but did not earn the gold medal for the first time in five years.

Mouchawar wound up with 15 goals in seven tournament games.

TABLE TENNIS

The semifinal round of the women’s singles tournament was held at the Raleigh Civic Center, but neither of the Valley-area entries--Carol Davidson of Studio City nor Kim Gilbert of Van Nuys--were included.

Davidson was bounced out in the first round, losing two of three matches, including one to Gilbert, 21-18, 22-20.

Gilbert won two of her three first-round matches, but the second round proved a disaster as she was eliminated by losing three times--to Vicky Wong of Elmhurst, N.Y., 21-14, 21-16; to Sheila O’Dougherty of Minneapolis, 20-22, 21-17, 21-13; and to Ardith Lonnon of St. Paul, Minn., 21-12, 21-19.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

The West won a bronze medal by defeating the East, 91-86, at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

UCLA forward Trevor Wilson, formerly of Cleveland High, contributed 11 points and five rebounds in a game that left his team with a final tournament record of 2-2. Tom Lewis of Pepperdine led the West with 17 points.

RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS

Irina Rubenshtein of Agoura is in third place after the four events in the all-around preliminaries at the Raleigh Civic Center.

Rubenshtein finished with an aggregate total of 37.70 points. Consistency was her strength as all of her scores ranged between 9.3 and 9.5.

Alexandra Feldman of Sherman Oaks was in seventh place with a score of 37.0

TEAM HANDBALL

Renee Brum of Camarillo scored three goals, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the West from losing to the South, 15-10, in the Carmichael Gymnasium at North Carolina State in Raleigh.