Top Seniors Will Play in Cage Classic

Many of the South Bay’s top high school seniors will play in the ninth annual Optimist All-Star Basketball Classic on Sunday night at Santa Monica College.

Boys and girls teams representing the South Bay and Westside areas will play a doubleheader starting at 6:30 with the girls game. To allow for more playing time because of the large number of players, there will be 12-minute quarters.

The South boys team, coached by former Fairfax Coach Marty Beigel, includes two league MVPs--Rolling Hills swingman John Hardy and Carson forward Vincent Washington. Hardy led a team of Southern Section all-stars with 14 points last week in a game at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Others expected to play for the South, according to game organizer Jerry Weiner, are:

Raymond Wang and Art Terrill of Torrance; Eric Carpenter and Alex Mendenhall of Serra; Mark Tesar of Rolling Hills; Mac Williams and Albert Kiilehua of Leuzinger; MacArthur Wells, Stan Boyce and Tony Scott of Hawthorne; Shawn Foster of El Segundo; Ray Bennett and Odis Smith of Carson; Scott Klein of Miraleste; Richard Negrete of Mary Star; Jesus Perez and Shelton Hill of Bishop Montgomery; Ian Chatfield of Palos Verdes; Chris Waller of Banning and Jay Horton and Joe Doktorczyk of San Pedro.

The North team, coached by former Palisades assistant Dick Bassler, is led by four players from St. Bernard--Juno Armstrong, Marc Raveling, Sean Patikas and Terrell Steen.

Other South Bay players expected to compete for the North are Eddie Scott and Chris Vance of Morningside, Tommy Holland and Cory Johnson of Inglewood and Booker Waugh of Westchester.

The South girls team, coached by former UCLA standout Dora Dome, features 6-4 twins Heather and Heidi Burge of Palos Verdes, Vanessa Vogelsang of Redondo, Candice Burnett of Banning and Neisha Williams of Hawthorne. All were members of The Times South Bay all-star team.

Rounding out the South contingent are LaTisha Amos of Banning, Illana Mazingo of Hawthorne, Sonja Alafua and Diane Miyake of Carson, Erica Lacefield and Sabrina Washington of Leuzinger, Nan Hilton of Mira Costa and Miho Irimajiri and Shonra Martin of Rolling Hills.

The North girls, coached by ex-Long Beach State star Shameil Coleman, include Stasha Crawford and Vicki Smith of Inglewood.

Tickets will be available at the door and are $6 for adults, $3 for students with identification and $2 for children under 12. Proceeds will benefit the Optimist clubs.