Prep Notes / Rob Fernas : Cage Teams Hit Road to Play in Prestigious Tournaments

Prep basketball fans will have to go to great lengths to follow the South Bay’s top teams this month. In some cases, several thousand miles.

Westchester, Inglewood, Rolling Hills, St. Bernard, Morningside and Palos Verdes’ girls team are playing in prestigious out-of-state tournaments.

Through fund-raising and donations, teams came up with the money to plan trips as far east as New York and as far west as Hawaii.

Points of destination:

- Inglewood will play in the King of the Bluegrass Tournament in Louisville on Dec. 14-20 and the Las Vegas Holiday Classic on Dec. 26-29. The Sentinels, led by USC-bound Harold Miner, play in the Kentucky tournament Dec. 15 against Carol City of Miami and play their first game in Las Vegas on Dec. 26 against Garfield of Seattle.

- Morningside, which recently received $5,000 from alumnus Byron Scott of the Lakers, will play in the Iolani Classic in Honolulu on Dec. 16-21. The Monarchs are also scheduled to play in the Tournament of Champions at Ocean View High in Huntington Beach on some of those dates, so they will send their JV team if they are still competing. They open the Iolani Classic against St. Louis of Hawaii.

- St. Bernard, featuring 6-11 Ed Stokes, will compete in the Valley High School Tournament in Las Vegas on Dec. 19-24. This is a shorter trip than the Vikings normally make. They traveled to Florida for a tournament last season and played in Hawaii’s Iolani Classic two years ago.

- Rolling Hills will join Inglewood in the Las Vegas Holiday Classic. The Titans, who won two games in the tournament two years ago, face Lincoln of Brooklyn, N.Y., in their opener. Lincoln, 24-1 and runner-up for the New York City title last season, is led by 6-3 Norman Marbury, considered one of the top juniors in the nation.

- Westchester, ranked No. 6 in the nation by USA Today, will travel to Pine Bluff, Ark., for the King Cotton Classic on Dec. 27-30. Other entries include St. Anthony of Jersey City, N.J., and Flint Hill of Falls Church, Va., the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the nation, according to USA Today.

- The Palos Verdes girls team, led by 6-5 twins Heidi and Heather Burge, will compete in the Christ the King Tournament in Queens, N.Y., on Dec. 28-30.

Westchester Coach Ed Azzam says 5-9 point guard Sam Crawford, one of the Comets’ best players, has greatly improved since last season.

“Sam has matured to a point where he doesn’t have bad spurts in a game,” he said. “In the past he would go through two or three minutes of playing poorly, which killed us. He has not shown that at all this year. He’s been very consistent, especially on defense.

“He’s a great athlete and extremely quick, but he didn’t always feel like playing defense. Now that he’s playing better defense, it’s eliminated one of the holes we’ve had in the past.”

The CIF Southern Section basketball season, which gets under way today, marks the first time schools will be classified strictly by enrollment to determine divisional levels of competition.

The change was initiated to bring the Southern Section in line with the state championship tournament and provide a procedure for determining section representatives.

There are now nine divisions corresponding to the five state enrollment classifications: State Division I (5-AA--2,400 students and over; 5-A--2,000-2,399), State Division II (4-AA--1,750-1,999; 4-A--1,500-1,749), State Division III (3-A--1,000-1,499), State Division IV (2-AA--750-999; 2-A--400-749) and State Division V (1-A--150-399; Small Schools--0-149).

This week’s preseason polls reflect the new format. Bay League teams, for example, are ranked in three divisions. Leuzinger is ranked No. 8 in the 5-AA Division, Inglewood is ranked No. 4 in the 5-A poll and Rolling Hills is ranked No. 3 in the 3-A Division.

Although all three teams play in the same league, they would compete in different divisions in the playoffs.

Carson’s football team, which meets Dorsey at 7:30 Friday night in the semifinals of the L.A. City 4-A playoffs at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach, reached two milestones last week in a 53-0 rout of Kennedy.

The Colts improved to 10-1, marking the eighth straight season they have won at least 10 games. It also marked Carson’s 20th consecutive appearance in the playoffs.

Kennedy was held to minus 27 yards rushing and 48 total yards, while the Colts racked up 420 yards, 256 on the ground. Running back Errol Sapp rushed for a touchdown and caught 2 scoring passes, giving him 16 TDs this year.

Quarterback Perry Klein continued his torrid passing rate, completing 8 of 13 attempts for 101 yards and 2 touchdowns. On the season, he has connected on 64 of 94 passes (68%) for 1,033 yards and 15 TDs.

Carson has outscored opponents 414-107 and holds a 354-48 scoring edge in the first three quarters.

PREP NOTES--Following are the South Bay football players named to league awards: Hawthorne quarterback Curtis Conway (Bay League Most Valuable Player), Leuzinger linebacker Henry Bens (Bay League Defensive Player of the Year), South Torrance wide receiver John Morton (Ocean League MVP), Morningside fullback/linebacker Deshon Mosley (Ocean League Back of the Year), Morningside tight end/linebacker Terrell Edwards (Ocean League Lineman of the Year), St. Bernard wide receiver Jason Lucky (Camino Real League Offensive Player of the Year), El Segundo tailback Erik Evans (Santa Fe League Offensive Player of the Year), Mary Star defensive lineman Steve Barker (Santa Fe League Defensive Player of the Year). . . . Gardena, led by singles players Julie Oshiro, Uyen Le, Khanh Le and Jan Morimoto, won the L.A. City 3-A girls tennis championship Tuesday with a 5-2 victory over Eagle Rock. . . . Westchester forward Zan Mason was named one of the top 25 basketball players in the nation by USA Today. . . . Senior forward Juno Armstrong is the first player since Corey Gaines, the former Loyola Marymount point guard, to start three straight years for St. Bernard’s basketball team.