JC Notes / Irene Garcia : El Camino Basketball Coach Had a Shiny Crystal Ball

At the start of the season, when El Camino was ranked No. 18 in the national junior college basketball polls, first-year Coach Ron McClurkin said his team was going to surprise a lot of people.

He knew that despite the absence of Paul Landreaux, who took an assistant coaching job at UCLA, his team could maintain the El Camino winning tradition and perhaps defend its state title.

The Warriors are on schedule. They ended the regular season as the South Coast Conference champs with a 21-8 overall record (6-2 in the SCC), a conference Coach of the Year and the SCC Co-Most Valuable Player.

“I didn’t want to say much (at the start of the season) in case we didn’t do well,” McClurkin said, “but I knew we could do it. I knew we’d be good. From the first day of practice I could tell we had a lot of great talent.”

McClurkin, who tends to be a modest guy, was unanimously named the SCC Coach of the Year by conference coaches, and senior guard Kevin Mixon, who leads the team with a 19-point average, was named the league’s Co-MVP along with Long Beach’s Shawn Williams.

“I really don’t like to talk about it,” McClurkin said, “but it does feel pretty good. It feels real good.”

Sophomore forward Zlatco Josic was named to the SCC’s first team and freshman David Keeter and sophomore Van Myers were chosen for the second team. Center Charles Evans, a 6-foot-7 freshman, was an honorable mention.

McClurkin recently received a call from an official inquiring about the state championship trophy, which the winning team keeps for one year.

“He asked, ‘Hey, how are you going to get the trophy back to Santa Clara?’ ” McClurkin said. “I said, ‘Hey, we’ll just bring it when we get there.’ ”

And if the Warriors get through two rounds of the Southern California Regionals, which begin Saturday, they’ll make the trip to Santa Clara for the state tournament March 9.

“People are asking ‘Is this for real?’ ” McClurkin said. “Yes it is for real. I think we can do it again. We’ve had some bad spots, but we got through all that.”

The Warriors got a first-round bye and won’t play until Wednesday. They’ll play host to the winner of Saturday’s game between No. 19 Glendale and No. 20 Golden West. If the Warriors win on Wednesday, they’ll be at home to bracket final on March 4.

Too bad Marymount Coach Jim Masterson isn’t as good at season forecasting as McClurkin. At the start of the season he said his club would definitely improve on last year’s 14-14 record (7-5 in the Southern California Athletic Conference).

The Mariners however, ended the season with a 90-64 loss to Compton, a 7-21 overall record and a tie for last place in the SCAC. They won only three conference games while losing 11. Marymount had SCAC victories over Trade Tech, East L.A. and Cerro Coso.

Maybe next year, Jim.

L.A. Harbor will open the Southern California Regionals on Saturday at Orange Coast College. The Seahawks (15-13, 8-6) finished third in the eight-member SCAC.

Orange Coast is the Orange Empire’s fifth-place team with a 21-10 overall record (5-7 in league).

Winning the game may bring mixed feelings since the victor has to play No. 1-seeded Santa Monica in the next round. The Corsairs went undefeated in the Western State Conference (15-0) and ended the regular season with an impressive 30-3 record.

The Seahawks have two first-team all-conference players: guard Keith Billingslea and forward Ron Lewis.

Billingslea is a 6-3, 200-pound sophomore who leads the team in scoring (18.5 points a game), and Lewis is a 6-5, 180-pound sophomore who averages 17 points.

Harbor has honorable mention players in freshman guard Calvin Kyles and freshman center Roneil Powell.

First-year Coach Kristy Loesener was determined to turn the El Camino women’s basketball program around--and did. For the first time since 1975, the Warriors, ranked in the state’s top 20, made it to the Southern California Regionals as the SCC’s fourth-place team (15-8, 9-5).

El Camino lost, 110-83, to Golden West in Wednesday’s first-round regional game, but it was a great improvement for the Warriors, who finished seventh in the eight-member conference last year with a 7-22 record (3-11 in the SCC).

“We had some struggle throughout the year,” Loesener said, “but I’m very pleased because they worked hard to get where they got. It was a very satisfying season.”

Two El Camino players received first team all conference honors and one was named to the second team. Guard Kim Bly (15.8 points a game) and forward Cheri Bullet (15.7) were first-team selections. Bly led the Warriors with 24 points against Golden West and Bullet had 17. Center Melinda Brown (10.7 points a game) was named to the second team. She scored 14 against Golden West.

What does El Camino assistant cross-country coach Dean Lofgren know about fast centipedes? Well, he makes them so he must be knowledgeable.

Lofgren, who was on the Warrior 1977 and 1978 cross-country team, formed the 10-man centipede that won the Redondo Super Bowl 10-K race in 33 minutes and 42 seconds. He designed the colorful linen spread that united the group of runners, most of them former El Camino cross-country runners.

Lofgren, who is also part of the centipede, started the tradition as an athlete at El Camino in 1978. The Warrior centipede entered the annual race unofficially until last year when a centipede category was created. El Camino’s centipede won.

“In 1978 we were the only ones,” said El Camino cross-country Coach Dave Shannon, who coaches the centipede from a bicycle, “and everybody looked at us like we were crazy. I guess it is crazy when 10 runners are tied together.”

Four L.A. Southwest football players will compete for Division I schools next year. Running back Fred Leslie and linebacker Edward Lair will be teammates at Cal State Long Beach. Offensive tackle Larry Brown signed with Texas Christian and wide receiver Tim Campbell will play at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.