Birmingham Coach Faces 1st Season in the Red

Unless Birmingham (7-11, 3-5 in East Valley League play) finishes the season with a rush, Elliot Turret will experience the first losing season of his coaching career.

Turret led the Braves to an 11-8 record last season, including a 7-3 mark in Northwest Valley League play, and guided Santa Monica Crossroads to three Southern Section 1-A Division championships and two runner-up finishes from 1981-86. Crossroads compiled a 105-32 record during that span.

“This could be a memorable and record-setting season,” Turret quipped. “But for all the wrong reasons.”

Records: Brent Lofton of El Camino Real could be the first player in school history to crack the 900-500 plateau in career points and rebounding. With two regular-season games remaining, Lofton has 878 points, already a school career record, and 473 rebounds. If he continues to meet his season average--22.9 points and 10.8 rebounds a game--Lofton should set the scoring record today against Chatsworth and the rebounding mark in El Camino Real’s first playoff game. Sean Davis, a 1987 graduate now on scholarship at San Jose State, holds the El Camino Real career rebounding record with 561.

Newbury Park’s Wayne Cook, a quarterback who has verbally committed to UCLA, is also making his mark on the Panthers’ basketball program. Cook, who has led Newbury Park in scoring and rebounding in each season since his sophomore year, is seventh in school history with 473 points in a season and sixth in career scoring with 944. He ranks 13th in rebounds with 210 this season and his 505 career rebounds rank him fifth in school history. “He is the best all-around athlete I’ve ever coached,” said Newbury Park Coach Ken Barone, who, excluding a stretch as Ventura College coach from 1981-82 through ‘84-85, has coached the Panthers since 1975.

Scoring: When Grant defeated Birmingham, 49-40, last week, it marked the first time this season that no Lancer scored in double figures. Chris Cooke and Troy Mcleod each scored a team-high nine points for Grant. . . . Burroughs’ Dan Murphy and Tom Clemons both are shooting 53% from the field. Clemons scored 17 points and cleared a season-high 16 rebounds against Schurr.

Notre Dame senior Brian Jones has a three-year total of 1,122 points in 63 games (17.8 average). This season, Jones is averaging a team-high 26 points and is 200 of 382 (52%) from the field. Jones has made 39 of 80 three-point shots. . . . Notre Dame’s Ken Hicks has a three-year total of 683 points in 48 games (14.2 average). Hicks has made 90 of 169 (53%) shots from the field this season, including 32 of 64 from three-point range.

Marcus Littlejohn of Sherman Oaks CES, who averages 24 points, has converted 31 of 42 three-point shots (73.8%).

Blocks: Taft’s Jason Deyoe, a 6-foot-8 junior center, blocked a school-record nine shots in the Toreadors’ 69-55 win over Granada Hills on Jan. 27. For an encore, Deyoe redirected five more shots in Friday’s 55-51 win over Kennedy. “He’s only a junior, and, if he grows another two inches or so by next year, look out,” Taft Coach Jim Woodard said.

Score correction: When Highland Hall defeated Grace Community in a Westside League game Friday, the score was actually, 72-67, not 72-66 as originally reported. A Grace Community player apparently hit a three-point shot at the buzzer but was only given credit for a two-point basket.

BASKETBALL TOP 10

Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Cleveland North Valley 18-2 2 2 Rio Mesa Channel 19-3 3 3 Notre Dame S.F. Valley 15-8 4 4 Taft North Valley 16-3 5 7 North Hollywood Mid-Valley 13-4 6 5 Kennedy North Valley 12-6 7 6 Grant East Valley 15-3 8 9 Bell-Jeff S.F. Valley 19-3 9 10 Burroughs Foothill 16-6 10 8 Granada Hills North Valley 11-8

Through Tuesday’s games.