The Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : It Still Means the World to El Dorado’s Evans

Having just broken two world records at the Phillips 66/U.S. Swimming Indoor National Championships last week in Orlando, Fla., Janet Evans, holder of three world bests, turns her attention to competing in . . .

High school meets?

Actually, it’s not as strange as it appears. At least not in Southern California, where, according to Tom Milich, Evans’ coach at El Dorado High of Placentia, “the competition she will face at the CIF finals is almost comparable to what she’ll face at nationals.”

Indeed, the opposition has been formidable in the Southern Section 3-A division alone. Julie Martin is a current standout at La Palma Kennedy. Sheri Smith from Hacienda Heights Wilson and Katie Rowe from Long Beach Wilson both are now at UCLA, and Stacy Shupe, former Cerritos Gahr star, is at Stanford.

Evans, who set world records in the 800-meter freestyle last Tuesday and the 1,500-meter freestyle last Saturday in Orlando, is a junior in her third year of swimming for El Dorado. For someone who is among the best in the world, being the best in the Empire League or the Southern Section is hardly a surprise. Still, her accomplishments are noteworthy.

Milich entered her in two events in league finals in 1986 and in two others in ’87. Evans set Empire records in all four.

She also won two Southern Section titles as a freshman and one as a sophomore. And now, after competing in El Dorado’s season opener March 11 against El Toro and then missing the next two because of the national meet, Evans will return to the high school fold.

“It’s hyperactivity,” Paul Evans jokes of his daughter’s breakneck schedule, which included being in Oklahoma Sunday and Monday for a social function before returning home. “She wants to be a star. She wants to make it happen. And she realizes you don’t get to play Carnegie Hall without a lot of practice.

“But she really enjoys the competition in high school because it is high school. It’s friends and camaraderie and that is what she enjoys so much.”

Hyperactive might be one way to describe Evans’ style in the water. Someone once wrote that, at 5 feet 5 inches and 99 pounds, she swims like a windup bathtub toy because of her straight-over-the-top strokes and because she takes about twice as many of the short reaches as her competition.

She tells the story of when the swimmers from the Soviet Union laughed when they saw her on the deck before the Goodwill Games of 1985 in Moscow.

She won a bronze medal there and hasn’t stopped improving, all the way through last week in Florida. Today the world, tomorrow the Southern Section.

Evans can make the strange twist work.

The Southern Section is close to scrapping its conference format for football in name only, a change away from the current lineup of Big Five Conference, Southern Conference, Desert-Mountain Conference, and so on.

Instead, the new system, which would not affect the conferences themselves, would be labeled Division I through Division IV, and would be based on the strength of the groups, as is the case with other sports. That naming apparently won out over the alternative of Division 5-AA, Division 5-A, Division 4-AA, Division 4-A, etc. It has not yet been determined which division numbers would be assigned to the current conference names.

“I think we’ll go to the division concept this fall,” Commissioner Stan Thomas said. “I hate the names with the conferences. Nobody can attach any relevance to it.”

All’s well--so far--on the transfer watch at Verbum Dei of Los Angeles, which has lost enough basketball talent in Gilbert T. Baker’s first two years as coach to transform the Eagles from Southern Section 5-A title contenders to second-place finishers in the Camino Real League.

After losing juniors Zan Mason and Renaud Gordon to Westchester and outstanding sophomore Ed O’Bannon to Artesia because of what Baker saw as the influence of postseason all-star teams, the coach is encouraging his players to opt for track or volleyball in the spring instead of basketball with an outside source. That way, he reasons, fewer coaches will have a chance to woo them away.

“It’s unfortunate,” Baker said. “I’d rather it wasn’t up to me and that (the players) would be able to join any team they wanted. But when you lose the players we have, you have to do something.

“We want to occupy them and keep them at school. We want them to get involved in other sports and to remain committed to Verbum Dei. I don’t think anyone will leave this year, but I didn’t think anyone was going to leave last year, either.”

O’Bannon, a 6-7 forward-center, did. With Artesia in 1987-88, he averaged 20.5 points and 12.8 rebounds and showed flashes that make him one of the most promising players around.

Mason and Gordon were two of the top players on the Westchester team that reached the City 4-A semifinals before losing to Manual Arts, eventual state Division I champion.

Brian Criss, a senior catcher at Servite of Anaheim, set two Southern Section single-game baseball records in the Friars’ 36-0 Angelus League victory over Pius X of Downey last Saturday.

Criss’ seven hits broke the mark of six, set by John Kaulback of Serrano in 1981. Criss also scored seven runs, one more than Victor Salazar of Providence of Burbank last season.

Mike Robertson, another Servite player, walked five times against Pius X. That’s not a record, but it might play like a broken one. Robertson walked 24 times in the first 9 games. Maybe there’s a reason.

On the two occasions Pius X pitchers gave him something to hit, Robertson responded with home runs.

Prep Notes

Pasadena Muir football Coach Dwain Thornton, saying he never was able to dismiss the disappointment of the Mustangs’ missing the playoffs because of an eligibility problem with one player, announced his resignation. Thornton, who said he would have stayed if the late-season forfeits had not occurred, left after one year in the job. No replacement has been named. Jim Brownfield, the current Muir athletic director who preceded Thornton and took a leave of absence from the football team for health reasons, said he still plans to return in 1989, and not sooner. That would give one of the top programs in Southern California coaching changes for four straight seasons.

When Margi Gilles of Burbank triple jumped 39 feet 2 3/4 inches in a dual meet last Thursday, the best mark of the year in the country, she bettered her previous personal best by 1 foot 7 3/4 inches. . . . Bel-Air Prep of Los Angeles, which went through the first six years of the school without a no-hitter in baseball or softball, ended both droughts March 9. Chrissie Peck, the Southern Section Small Schools player of the year with a 20-4 record last season as a freshman, finished her no-hit, 14-1 victory over Westlake of Los Angeles sometime around 5:30 p.m. About 30 minutes later, the baseball team took the field at another site, and senior Sean Lewis stopped Whitney of Cerritos without allowing a hit. Lewis, an All-Southern Section pick as a sophomore, struck out 15.

Michele Granger, the record-breaking softball pitcher at Valencia of Placentia, had 21 strikeouts last Thursday in a 1-0, 11-inning loss to Edison of Huntington Beach. Her counterpart, Terry Carpenter, who has pitched four no-hitters this season, struck out 20, walked none and allowed 4 hits. Granger, who has been plagued by lack of offensive support throughout her career at Valencia, surrendered three hits and one walk. . . . The second annual USC football coaching clinic, for coaches of all levels, will be held April 8-9. Trojan Coach Larry Smith and his staff, Ram assistant Hudson Houck and Dave Hannah from Athletes for a Strong America are the featured speakers. For more information, call (213) 743-2751. . . . The City Section will offer girls’ soccer next fall.