Taft’s Woodard Judges Cleveland as the Team Most Likely to Succeed

He has seen Fairfax and its 6-7 center, Chris Mills, the City Section 4-A Division Player of the Year. Fairfax is ranked No. 2 in the City Section by The Times. He has watched Dorsey, ranked No. 9 . . . and Manual Arts, ranked No. 4 . . . and Kennedy, ranked No. 6.

All talented teams, to be sure, yet when Taft Coach Jim Woodard--whose own team is ranked No. 7--peers into the looking glass, he sees Cleveland in the City championship game.

“I think they have the best team in the league and they have a good shot at the City championship,” said Woodard, whose team visits Cleveland in a key Valley League game at 4 p.m. today.

About the only team Woodard has not seen is top-ranked Crenshaw, but that has not swayed him.

“They’d have to go a ways to be a more balanced team than Cleveland,” he said. “Cleveland has too many horses.”

Woodard may be trying to prime his team for today’s game, but he also has a point: Four Cleveland players--Damon Greer, Joey Manliguis, Adonis Jordan and Richard Branham--average more than 10 points. Four average seven or more rebounds and three average seven assists or better.

If Woodard is correct, Cleveland will make its third consecutive appearance in the 4-A final.

“They beat Dorsey and they beat Manual Arts, and those are some good teams,” he said. “And when they play Fairfax at home, I think Cleveland will beat them.”

The Cavaliers lost to Fairfax, 78-69, in the league opener last month, when Mills scored 42 points.

Add Taft: Junior point guard Dedan Thomas has been cleared by a physician to play in today’s game against Cleveland. Thomas, who averages 13.2 points and 9.7 assists a game, cracked the pinkie finger of his left hand in a game last week against El Camino Real.

“He’ll be taped up and in a splint, but he’ll play,” said Woodard of Thomas, who is right-handed.

A 10-year low: After Bell-Jeff blazed to a 3-0 start in Santa Fe League play, two losses doused the team’s hot streak. The Guards, who had won five of their past six games, lost both contests in convincing fashion, 73-51, to Chaminade, and, 76-58, to Harvard.

“We were outhustled, outshot, outrebounded, out-everythinged,” 10-year Coach Joe Dunn said. “Last week was the biggest frustration I’ve had since I’ve been here. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

To make matters worse, starters Nick Sanderson and Chris Dyer were benched for disciplinary reasons in the first quarter of the Harvard game.

Sanderson had been called for a technical foul against Chaminade, which violates a team rule, and Dyer missed practice without notifying Dunn.

Without Sanderson and Dyer, Bell-Jeff trailed Harvard, 21-12, after the first period.

“We really could have used them in the early going against Harvard,” Dunn said. “But I have rules and I’ve got to enforce them.”

Soaring Eagles: When Chaminade junked its old set-up offense in favor of a newer, fast-break model last week, it resulted in Santa Fe League victories over Bell-Jeff and St. Genevieve.

“The kids really responded well to it,” Coach Mike Lynn said. “They just felt more relaxed. They had more freedom.”

No one responded better than Peter Miller, a 5-11 guard who scored 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting against Bell-Jeff and 13 points against St. Genevieve, including 11 of 12 free throws.

“He really struggled in the set-up offense,” Lynn said. “I think he felt too restricted.”

The new attack also proved beneficial to attendance.

“Against Bell-Jeff, we had a pretty good crowd,” Lynn said. “But we packed the gym for the first time in three years against St. Genevieve. People love to watch run-and-gun basketball.”

Add Chaminade: When Alex Rigolizzo scored the Eagles’ first basket against Bell-Jeff, fans showered the court with rolls of toilet paper, delaying the game for several minutes.

“That’s the first time it’s happened, but they did a pretty thorough job,” Lynn said. “They caught us off guard the other night, but it won’t happen again.

“I’d rather see their energy channeled in a little more constructive way--like crowd noise.”

Injury parade: Injury problems continue for Chatsworth. Coach Gary Shair’s Chancellors played without forward Erik Merkel last Wednesday and lost to Granada Hills, 62-57. Merkel who is averaging 10 points a game, returned Friday against Monroe and scored 14 points in a 54-51 overtime win.

But starting center Stuart Thompson missed the game after undergoing minor surgery.

Thompson, who is averaging nine points a game, is expected to be out at least two weeks. Bryan Addison, who scored 12 points against Monroe, has replaced him.

Good, but not good enough: Before Tuesday’s game, Canyon was 1-12, 0-3 in Golden League play and had lost 10 in a row.

But Canyon beat Palmdale, 60-55, Tuesday, and Coach Greg Hayes is conceding little.

“The last month, we’ve been showing steady improvement,” Hayes said. “We’re better. We’re just not better than the teams we’ve been playing. There’s no shame in that.”

Canyon plays defending Southern Section 3-A Division champion Saugus on Friday.

Good scouting: Coach Bill Bellatty preaches that Calabasas lives and dies by the three-point shot.

In last week’s 59-31 loss to Santa Clara for first place in the Frontier League, the Coyotes’ chances of winning faded with every missed three-point shot.

Calabasas was 0 for 10 from the 19-foot, 9-inch arc and made only 7 of 21 free throws. It was the team’s lowest point total this season.

“They picked us up at the three-point line and we couldn’t get the ball inside,” Bellatty said. “We played horribly due to their great defense.”

Jon Drezner, who averages 29.1 points a game, scored 15 points.

Staff writers Steven Fleischman Vince Kowalick, John Ortega and Sean Waters contributed to this notebook.