THERE’S NO PLACE THAT’S HOME

The Castle Park High School boys’ and girls’ basketball teams have not played a home game this season.

Neither has practiced on its own gym floor or played before a home crowd or with a home-court advantage. Neither practices in a facility that in any way resembles a regulation high school basketball gym.

And neither has been hurt very badly by all this. The best boys’ and girls’ basketball teams in the Metro-South Bay League are those of Castle Park, a school whose gymnasium floor was destroyed by vandals in September and has yet to be reopened.

“It’s been a phenomenal season at Castle Park, yet one very trying,” said Forest Partch, the boys’ coach and athletic director.

Without preseason basketball or adequate facilities, Partch has guided the boys’ team to a 16-7 record, a third consecutive South Bay League title and a 12-game winning streak. And he has done it with a team that returned only one starter from a 21-5 season.

Jim Finnerty has done the same with the girls’ team, which is 17-6 and 10-1 in Metro Conference play. It clinched the South Bay title over a week ago.

A schedule of all road games has given the Castle Park teams a reworked nickname, “Travelin’ Trojans.” Inside the front cover of the boys’ official program is the “Trojan Update,” the first sentence of which reads: “The ‘Travelin’ Trojans’ have faced adversities this season that a less spirited team would have crumbled under.”

The 1987-88 basketball season changed for good at 6 a.m. on a Monday morning in mid-September when a custodian discovered water streaming from under the doors of the gymnasium. Vandals had broken in during the weekend, turned on a fire hose and let it run.

“We don’t know if it was an individual or individuals that turned on a fire hose and flooded the entire gym,” Partch said. “It took a whole day to push the water out from on top of the floor, and we cut holes in the floor and pumped out as much water as possible.”

Partch and others worked for about three or four days trying to get as much water off as possible. Then they brought in a large fan to try to dry it out.

“The floor then warped and expanded all the way on both sides,” Partch said. “The floor itself was sealed so when it expanded it rose about 3 1/2 to 4 feet high.”

By the first of October, Partch said, it became clear that the floor was ruined. The end of reconstruction, which will cost from $100,000 to $110,000, has been delayed five times.

“What it did in actuality was eliminate any preseason things that we could do to prepare for basketball,” said Partch, whose teams are 60-14 over the past three seasons. “I usually open the gym a couple nights a week. I ran a fall league for a couple years at our school. We didn’t do any of that. The poor kids who were hoping to play really didn’t get that much of an opportunity unless they had access to cars to get to other gyms. There is none real close to us.”

It then came time for the coaches to find a practice home for their teams.

“I went for six weeks trying to find places around,” Partch said. “It got down to about a week before the season when we finally found (a place). My principal at the last second said he was trying to find us a place from 5 to 7 in the morning at another school. I told him there is no way . I used to coach sophomore level basketball, and we did that. On the varsity level, we are going to lose kids. They won’t even come out. Only the most dedicated kids would come under those circumstances.

“We finally got the San Ysidro Community Center. Its gym is roughly about 65 feet long and about 40 feet wide (regulation is 84 by 50). We are a team that has been small in the past and has to press and fast break and run and be in great shape to be able to compete with teams that are much bigger. That was a problem we dealt with, and it cost us early on.”

John Stanton, the only four-year letterman in school history, described the San Ysidro gym as being half the size of a regular court.

“The first day of tryouts was terrible,” Stanton said. “The floor is like composite of rubber. The gym was cold so it made the ground really hard.”

The girls’ team ended up practicing three times a week at the Chula Vista Community Center. Partch said the school had to go through Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox to secure the facility.

The community center is also the practice home of the junior varsity boys’ team, which practices inside when the girls’ varsity is playing, and outside when it is not. The junior varsity girls’ team has practiced mostly outdoors.

While the girls have maintained the community center as their practice home, Partch, after about a month, moved his team from San Ysidro. He realized a regulation-size gym was necessary to get his team into shape.

“Any place would have been better,” he said. “I was really thankful to those people, and they were very cooperative, but it was just not a good situation.”

So the Travelin’ Trojans hit the road again. They landed about a mile away from the high school at the Girls’ Club and Boys’ Club of Chula Vista where the floor was of regulation size. But . . . .

“We have to use portable baskets,” Partch said.

The baskets are like those someone would buy at K-Mart and erect in their back yard. They include a square metal stand, a pole and an unstable, fan-shaped backboard. And there are only two of them.

“Again, a very difficult situation that we only have two baskets to work with,” Partch said. “Coaching, I use six baskets when I have 12 people.”

One stipulation for using the club was that the team had to buy the portable baskets and allow the club full use. The players start practice by setting them up.

“We’ve had the baskets lowered when we come in sometimes. They are down to nine feet and we don’t have an Allen wrench and we can’t adjust them and there is nobody there to adjust them for us,” Partch said. “One is stripped, and it moves around when you hit it. We’ve had two kids turn ankles landing on the standards, and one kid hit the pole in midair. Both the kids and myself are very apprehensive. We can’t really go all out in any type of scrimmage situation when we get too close to that standard.”

The team struggled to a 4-7 start, trying to run itself into shape. Its “neutral site” homes had become Chula Vista High and Montgomery High. The Travelin’ Trojans played six games at each.

“The biggest difficulty I think for our team is not having the opportunity to practice in a regulation gym” Partch said. “The kids have believed, given the opportunity to get themselves into shape, they could survive the rough times, that we would at least in January know what we were made of. Find out if we were good, bad, average or whatever. The kids have responded really well. I’m really proud of them.”

The Trojans have not lost since they were 4-7, but setbacks have continued in the gym reconstruction.

“They had promised me Jan. 1,” Partch said. “That was the first day. Then Jan. 15, then, ‘Hey, no problem, we’ll get you in the last week in January.’ Well, then it will be Feb. 3, then the water problem (rain leaked through the roof on a small section, causing a delay), ‘Oh, Feb. 10.’ The poor kids. I told them the first couple times, then I didn’t tell them anymore. ‘Hey, when I know something, I’ll let you know.’ I saw the faces. You can’t hide disappointment when you work as hard as they have, hoping. It’s like a little flicker of a candle now.”

Said Stanton: “We try to stay optimistic about it. That’s all we can do.”

Up until last Wednesday, Partch believed the gym would be ready for the team’s last regular-season game Feb. 17. Wednesday, he was told the gym would not be ready until Feb. 19. Partch hopes for a home-court playoff game, at least in the first round. But Castle Park is in Division II, probably the most balanced, top to bottom, in the county.

“It hurts not to have it,” Partch said. “We try not to dwell upon it. Hopefully in the playoffs.”

Since both the boys and girls’ teams were league champions, Partch hopes for a playoff double header at Castle Park. The Travelin’ Trojans then could finally travel home.

“I’m not sure if that would be a home court or still a neutral court,” Partch said.