Redondo Pitcher-Shortstop Davison Passes Up USC to Sign With Expos

USC’s loss was the Montreal Expos’ gain this week.

Redondo High School pitcher-shortstop Scott Davison, the state player of the year, passed up a baseball scholarship to USC by agreeing to terms with the Expos on Thursday night.

“I just want to get out there and start playing,” Davison said. “It was tough to turn down USC, but the money made it worth it. I made it known to the scouts during the season that I wanted to sign. I think everyone knew that was my priority.”

Davison, who set numerous hitting and pitching records in his four years on the Redondo varsity, will sign Monday in Bradington, Fla., where he will begin playing shortstop for the Expos’ rookie league team.

His package, including incentives, is worth $67,000. Davison was drafted in the fourth round.

“The Expos came up a great deal from where they started and we came down a little,” he said. “It was fair on both sides.”

During negotiations, Davison said, the Expos came up with several proposals to entice him to sign. He said that if he had signed on a particular day a week ago, the Expos promised to make him the starting shortstop on a single-A team in Jamestown, N.Y.

“But that would have been for less money, so I didn’t go for that,” he said. “They came up with some weird things.”

It was another small, quick and aggressive Carson High basketball team that repeated as champion of the Carson Summer Grand Finale tournament Friday night with a 74-73 win over Dominguez of Compton in the finals.

For Rich Masson, coaching small teams is nothing new. In his 14 years as a head coach--seven at L.A. Jordan and the last seven at Carson--he has never had a player taller than 6-5 for a regular-season game.

“You’d think sooner or later I would get one,” he said, “but I never do. Anyway, I might screw him up if I got one. I wouldn’t know how to act.”

Masson coached 6-10 Clifford Allen for one summer at Carson, but Allen got into trouble and never played a regular-season game for the Colts.

Currently, Carson starts three guards--Greg Lindsey, Ray Bennett and Odis Smith--and 6-4 forwards Vince Washington and Eric Bender. Washington, who had 19 points and scored the game-winning basket with nine seconds left against Dominguez, was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Masson arrived at Carson in 1983, the year after the Colts won the state championship behind 6-8 Eldridge Hudson. When he started coaching at Jordan, Masson just missed 6-9 Ron Riley, who went on to play center for USC.

“As soon as I come, wham, the big men stop coming,” he said.

At Jordan, Masson coached Ed Catchings, who was 6-3 as a senior. By the time Catchings began playing for El Camino College, he had grown to 6-6. By the time he transferred to Nevada-Las Vegas, he was 6-8.

Masson feels good about his team now, but he realizes that could change during football season.

Lindsey and Bender, two of his better players, are planning to play football for Carson this fall. Lindsey is regarded as a college prospect at safety, and Bender plays defensive end.

Masson has become used to sharing athletes at a school where football is king.

“They get some of ours, but we don’t get theirs,” he said. “No football players come out for basketball, and they have some athletes.”

Proving Masson’s point is the fact that the senior football players lost to the senior basketball players by only two points in an informal game last year.

Rolling Hills center John Hardy captured scoring honors in the Carson tournament, averaging 38.5 points in four games.

The 6-4 senior, who was nearly unstoppable inside, couldn’t carry the Titans single-handedly, however. They finished the tournament with a 2-2 record, losing in the semifinals to Carson, 78-64.

Carson held Hardy to 28 points, his lowest total in the tournament. In other games, Hardy scored 39 against Crossroads, 38 against Long Beach Poly and 49 in a 102-96 overtime victory over Morningside.

Hardy was one of six South Bay players named to the all-tournament team. The others were Bennett, Lindsey and Washington of Carson, Palos Verdes guard Ian Chatfield and Morningside guard Kenny Jones.

Palos Verdes basketball Coach John Mihaljevich says 6-4 Art Shell, son of the former Raiders offensive tackle of the same name, could become the first freshman to earn a spot on the Sea Kings’ varsity team.

“We’re excited about getting a potentially outstanding player, but we’re not going to rush him,” Mihaljevich said. “We’re going to bring him along slowly and see if he can move into the top eight (players) by the end of the summer.”

Shell, who plays center, is regarded as an outstanding shot blocker and a dedicated player.

“He’s a gym rat,” Mihaljevich said. “He wants to play all the time.”

Shell helped Palos Verdes defeat Hawthorne, 48-28, in the consolation semifinals on Friday. Morningside beat the Sea Kings in the finals, 49-47, on Chris Vance’s tip-in with two seconds left.

Aside from capturing the team title, Carson players also won both ends of the tournament’s skill contest Friday.

In a rousing three-point shooting contest, Carson’s Bennett came from behind to edge Chris Costello of Palos Verdes. Bennett made 14 of 20 attempts, including 9 of 10 on the last round. Costello made his first 8 shots but was only 5 of 12 the rest of the way to finish 13 for 20.

Junior Bobby Kelly, a reserve forward for the Colts, won the dunk contest.

Add namesakes: Efrem Zimbalist IV, grandson of actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr., is a reserve player for Torrey Pines of San Diego, which finished with a 2-1 record in the Carson tournament.