Rolling Hills, Inglewood Have Title Hopes in Las Vegas Holiday Tourney

Westchester will not return to defend its title, but two other South Bay basketball teams will try to bring back the championship from the Las Vegas Holiday Prep Classic starting Monday.

Rolling Hills (7-1), which has reached the finals of two tournaments, and Inglewood (2-2), anxious to play after a 2-week layoff, are entered in the prestigious tournament that features 30 teams from nine states.

In first-round games Monday, Rolling Hills faces Lincoln High of Brooklyn, N.Y., at 3:15 p.m. and Inglewood meets Garfield of Seattle at 5:45. All games will be played at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Rolling Hills Coach Cliff Warren is looking forward to playing some of the nation’s top high school teams. The Titans split four games in the tournament two years ago.

“I like the Vegas tournament because you get a chance to play teams you’ve never seen before and face players with different styles,” he said. “I don’t know if we can win (the championship), but I know we have a legitimate shot at beating anybody.”

Rolling Hills, led by 6-4 forward John Hardy and a trio of accurate 3-point shooters--guards Steve Clover, Mark Tesar and Ron Dinnel--won the Pacific Shores Tournament two weeks ago and lost in the final of the Beverly Hills Tournament last week. The Titans played St. Bernard in both finals.

Warren was happy to have the past week off so several of his players could recover from injuries and illnesses. Center Rick Judge had surgery Monday for a growth on his foot, Tesar has the flu, Clover suffered an eye injury in the loss to St. Bernard and Dinnel sprained his ankle last week.

Judge and Tesar did not play in an alumni game Thursday night, but Warren expects Rolling Hills to be at full strength for Las Vegas.

“Hopefully we’ll have all our people available,” he said.

Rolling Hills’ first-round opponent, Lincoln, won 24 straight games last season before losing by 1 point in the New York City championship. Lincoln returns three starters--6-3 Norman Marbury, 6-6 Darrell Mims and 6-1 Michael Spencer--and has a 159-36 record over the last eight years.

Warren isn’t sure if Rolling Hills is prepared to contend with a top-notch team like that.

“Right now our defense and rebounding are not quite at a level to beating high-quality teams on a consistent basis,” he said.

Inglewood Coach Vince Combs is treating Monday’s first-round game like a season opener. The Sentinels split four games in the Pacific Shores Tournament without Combs, who was hospitalized with kidney stones, and did not perform as well as expected.

The team experienced more problems last week when a trip to a tournament in Kentucky was cancelled because of inadequate fund raising.

“It’s just like starting over,” Combs said. “The players have been practicing pretty well, but I think they’re antsy to play someone. It’s a question mark with me how they’re going to perform. They haven’t gotten to know and read each other in game situations, and that makes it hard.”

Combs said 6-10 center Cory Johnson has played better in recent practices and 6-5 forward Harold Miner, Inglewood’s star, seems to be in a better frame of mind after the disappointing start.

“The only thing that bothers me right now is the continuity,” Combs said. “I don’t have a good feeling. Our team play is not where we want it yet.”

Inglewood will find out where it stands against Garfield, which has won the Washington state championship four of the last nine years. The Bulldogs are led by three returning starters: 6-1 Jeff Staton, 6-4 Clinton Lomax and 5-10 Damario Hall.

Teams will play four games in the tournament, which concludes Thursday with the championship game at 7:30 p.m.

Westchester won the Las Vegas title last year with a 74-70 win over Ballard High of Louisville, Ky., in the final. The Comets are skipping the tournament this season in favor of the King Cotton Classic in Pine Bluff, Ark., starting Tuesday.

Westchester brings a 5-1 record into tournament, its only blemish being a 1-point loss to Edison of Fresno in the Ocean View Tournament of Champions.

Other entries in the King Cotton Classic 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’s preseason rankings. Westchester opened the season ranked No. 6.