This Team Just Might Be Crenshaw’s Best

Although there is still the matter of the City 4-A championship to be decided, Crenshaw High School’s basketball team is being compared to some of the best in school history. It’s easy to see why. The Cougars have, for the most part, rolled to a 25-0 record and will be favored to give Coach Willie West his 10th City title in Friday night’s game against Manual Arts of Los Angeles at the Sports Arena.

Crenshaw has outscored the opposition, 101-76, including a 101-90 victory over Manual Arts Dec. 19 in the championship game of the Los Angeles Invitational. Crenshaw has broken the 100-point barrier in 13 games, with a best of 149 in the opener against Murphy of Los Angeles, and has scored 95 or more five other times.

The Cougars’ starting lineup has an inside player in forward Doug Meekins, an outstanding shot blocker in center Cornelius Holden, a quarterback-type point guard in Damon Hill, a solid defensive player in guard Charlie Hill and an outside shooter in David Holloway. And high-scoring forward John Staggers is the sixth man.

“I’d have to say that in the past 15 years, they’re the best I’ve seen,” said Santa Monica Coach Cliff Hunter, whose Vikings lost to Crenshaw twice, 88-59 and 80-69. “I think of the Long Beach Poly teams and some of the Verbum Dei teams with (Cliff) Pruitt, (Kenny) Fields and the (Lionel) Marquetti, and of the other Crenshaw teams with John Williams or (Stephen) Thompson. But these guys are something else.”

West agrees with the last part, but stops short of putting 1987-88 at the top of the list. He would go so far as to put it in his top five or six. West mentions: the 1971-72 team of Marques Johnson, Maynard Brown, Kenny Daniels, Renard Murray and Reginald Mims that went 14-0 and held opponents to less than 45 points a game only to miss the playoffs because of an ineligible player; 1977-78, when Michael Johnson, Wayne Davis and Franklin Rhodes helped Crenshaw to become the first team in City history to win three straight titles; 1979-80, with Rhodes, Gary Maloncon, Harold Toomer and a 6-foot 4 1/2-inch left-handed forward, Darryl Strawberry; 1984-85, the team that went 24-0 and won several other games in Europe with seniors Paul Weakley and Stanley Brundy; and 1985-86, the team that combined a suffocating 2-1-2 full-court press with the outstanding offense of Thompson, Dion Brown and Ronald Caldwell.

The 1971-72 team is memorable for sentimental--and painful--reasons.

“It stands out because we won the championship the year before, in my first year as varsity coach,” West said. “I got a lot of static about ‘That’s not your team.’ I was determined to do a good job the following year. We did that. Those kids performed as well as we could have asked and got it taken away from them.

“This team (1987-88) has size and quickness, and some speed and good shooters. They don’t play defense quite like some of the past ones, but they’re good. It just has everything. It’s just a matter of going out and playing our game.”

Staggers, bound for Texas El Paso, is Crenshaw’s leading scorer at 23 points a game. But he has also been one of West’s biggest headaches. That is why the same person who was the Central League most valuable player and All-City last season has yet to start a game in 1987-88.

The specific reasons are not forthcoming.

“That’s my secret,” West said. “It started at the beginning of the year; he was reading his press clippings too much. He had a problem focusing in on what we wanted him to do, and it took him a while to come down to Earth. . . . Fortunately, not starting him has paid off in that I can bring him in as instant offense off the bench.”

Two of the Southern Section’s leading scorers will meet in the 4-A semifinals tonight when Don MacLean and top-seeded Simi Valley face Bobby Joyce and fourth-seeded Santa Ana at Chapman College. MacLean averaged 33.1 points a game during the regular season, Joyce 24.2.

Simi Valley has won its three playoff games by margins of 28, 20 and 49 points.

In other semifinal games, Rolling Hills meets Kennedy of La Palma at West Torrance in the 3-A; Bell-Jeff of Burbank and L.A. Baptist of Sepulveda play at North Hollywood, and Cathedral of Los Angeles takes on Beaumont at La Salle in Pasadena in 1-A; and Oakwood of North Hollywood and Boron meet at Tehachapi in Small Schools.

This is the first semifinal appearance for Cathedral since 1978.

The remainder of the semifinals, including both in the 5-A, will be played Wednesday.

In girls’ play, the top four seeded teams have advanced in the 4-A division, with No. 1 Inglewood Morningside traveling to Ventura College to play No. 4 Ventura Buena, and No. 3 Lynwood taking on No. 2 Santa Barbara at Compton College. The four other divisions are also in the semifinals tonight.

The Southern Section soccer playoffs, boys and girls, also begin the semifinals. All games will be played today except one, Buena at Laguna Hills in girls’ 3-A, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

El Camino Real of Woodland Hills dominated the City wrestling finals last Saturday at San Fernando, placing competitors in 10 of the 13 finals, winning four, and scoring 204 1/2 points to easily defeat L.A. Wilson (132 1/2) and defending champion San Fernando (110 1/2).

Mario Varela of San Fernando defended his 165-pound title and was named the outstanding wrestler of the meet.

Prep Notes

More than $9,000 has been raised for Jeff Bergan, the Mission Viejo wrestling coach in need of a new heart and kidneys, and some people have contacted the school about donating organs. Bergan, who will accompany Mission Viejo to the state wrestling meet Friday and Saturday in Stockton, will go to the Stanford Cardiology Center March 18 for three days of preliminary tests and will eventually rent an apartment in Palo Alto and await a donor. . . . Darrick Martin of Long Beach St. Anthony edged Don MacLean of Simi Valley for the Southern Section basketball scoring title, 33.4 to 33.1. John Nadolenco of Sherman Oaks Buckley (31.7), Tracy Murray of Glendora (31.3) and Mitchell Butler of North Hollywood Oakwood (31.0) also broke the 30-point barrier for the regular season. Chris Rogers of Elsinore Christian finished atop the rebounding list at 19.1 per game, and Mike Sandoval of Buena led in assists with 10.3 per game. In girls’ play, Michelle Williams of Riverside North and Lori Thompson of Monrovia tied for the scoring title with a 27.4 average. Kate McDonnell of Desert Christian led in rebounding (23.1), and Carla Gladden of Inglewood Morningside in assists (10.8). . . . Buena had a combined .913 winning percentage for its girls’ and boys’ teams to lead the Southern Section, both having gone 21-2 in the regular season. Banning (.896), Mojave (.881), Santa Ynez (.861) and Santa Barbara (.851) rounded out the top five, and 43 schools finished at .700 or better. . . . The most improved teams? Lawndale Leuzinger (from 1-19 in 1986-87 to 17-5 this season) in boys’ play and Santa Ana Saddleback (0-20 to 17-5) in the girls’.

Thirty-two football players from the San Gabriel Valley will be honored at the National Football Foundation’s 19th annual banquet, March 7 at the Pasadena Hilton. For more information: Linda Sells at (818) 793-6486 (daytime) or (818) 447-7155 (evenings). . . . Prime Ticket will televise four of the high school basketball championship games on a delayed basis: The City 4-A, Saturday at 4:30 p.m.; the Southern Section 5-A, Sunday at 8:30 p.m.; the Southern California Regional Division I, March 14 at 7:30 p.m.; and the state Division I, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. Geoff Witcher and Brad Holland will announce all the games. Radio station KDAY (1580) will broadcast the City 4-A final live Friday night, with Ted Sobel and Jamaal Wilkes. . . . Jeff Shimizu, who won three City 3-A baseball titles in the last four years at Venice, has resigned to spend more time with his family and job as a counselor at Santa Monica College. Kirk Alexander, an assistant and junior varsity coach the past six years, takes over. Shimizu, whose Gondoliers reached the final for the fourth straight time last season before losing to Huntington Park, will remain on Alexander’s staff as a volunteer assistant.