PREP NOTES : Football Playoffs Hurt Carson’s Basketball Team

As December approaches, it’s business as usual at Carson High.

The Colt football team begins defense of its L.A. City 4-A title Friday night against Kennedy of Granada Hills, while basketball Coach Rich Masson counts the days until the end of football.

Because four of his top players are also football stars, Masson probably will have to wait until the third week of December, after the City playoffs, before the basketball team is at full strength.

The trouble is, Carson played its basketball opener Tuesday.

“Conceivably, we could get three or four starters from the football team,” Masson said. “Right now we’re suiting up 10 players and only four are solid varsity players.”

That puts Carson at a considerable disadvantage early in the season, but Masson has grown accustomed to sharing players with the football team. This year, though, he says the problem is worse.

Football players expected to play prominent roles on the basketball team are forward Nkosi Littleton and guards Michael Ross, Clayvand Thomas and Armin Youngblood. Littleton plays middle linebacker and leads the football team in tackles, Ross is the Colts’ leading receiver, Thomas is a star defensive back and Youngblood plays quarterback.

“This is the worst year ever, as far as the number of bodies playing football,” Masson said. “It’s created a total lack of continuity. We could easily be 1-6 by the time (the football players) come out.

“Even when they do come out, there’s going to be a total lack of chemistry for quite a while. What’s that going to do to the morale of the other guys?”

Masson scoffed at Carson’s No. 3 seeding for the Pacific Shores Tournament starting Monday.

“There’s no way in the world we should be that high,” he said. “(The coaches) are seeding us on what we’ll be, not what we are. Realistically, we should be seeded 13th.”

Masson might have trouble convincing other coaches of that after Tuesday.

The Colts rallied from a 23-point deficit to defeat Locke, 81-80, behind 42 points from 6-foot-2 swing man Bobby Kelly.

Doug Mitchell has yet to coach his first regular-season basketball game for Bishop Montgomery, but he’s already experienced his first bad break.

Mitchell suffered a broken leg in a motorcycle accident Thanksgiving Day near his parents’ home in Lancaster. He underwent surgery to have four pins inserted in his left leg above the ankle.

“I was trying to remember my younger days, and I shouldn’t have,” he said of the accident, which involved no other vehicles.

Mitchell’s injury prevented him from conducting practice this week, but he says he will be on the sideline Monday night when Bishop Montgomery opens the season against Carson in the Pacific Shores Tournament at Redondo.

“I don’t know if I’ll be in a wheelchair or on crutches, but I’m going to get there,” he said. “I wouldn’t miss that one.”

Mitchell coached South Torrance the last two years.

Westchester High was well-represented Monday at a downtown meeting to appeal an L.A. City Section proposal to move the school to another sports conference, football Coach Larry Wein said.

“We gave what we thought was a real good presentation,” he said. “We had a lot of community support.”

Wein said more than 50 parents, coaches and community residents attended the meeting to protest a proposal to move Westchester to the Southern-Pacific Conference in place of Narbonne, which requested a change because of its failure to compete effectively on that level over the last two years.

Wein, Principal Eileen Banta and two parents addressed the eight-member releaguing committee in an effort to change the original 5-3 vote.

“I don’t know if we changed anybody’s mind,” Wein said. “We expect to find out in a week or so.”

Westchester, currently grouped with other Westside schools in the Coastal Conference, argues that moving to the Southern-Pacific Conference will bring gang violence to the area and hurt the school’s sports program by placing it in a conference with higher-enrollment schools such as Banning and Carson.

“If Narbonne has a problem, deal with Narbonne’s problem,” Wein said. “But don’t use Westchester as a solution to the problem. Don’t solve it by making Westchester a victim.”

West Torrance Co-Coach John Black reports that Warrior assistant Bill Vincent is retiring from football after coaching in the South Bay for 35 years.

Vincent was a member of West’s staff for nine years, helping the Warriors win five league titles and the CIF Coastal Conference championship in 1982.

Before that, he was the head coach and an assistant at El Camino College, where he coached both of West’s co-coaches, Black and Mark Knox.

Said Black: “His knowledge of the game, understanding of the kids and his great demeanor were keys to our success at West. We’ll miss Bill Vincent, but the game of football will miss him even more.”

The youngest of Vincent’s six sons, Matt, played tight end and linebacker for West’s Ocean League champion team this season.

Following are enrollment classifications for Southern Section schools for the 1989-90 boys and girls basketball season. Teams have until Friday to move to a higher state division.

Morningside’s girls team, as it did last year, has requested to move from the 3-AA to the 5-AA Division.

DIVISION I (5-AA): Leuzinger, Hawthorne. (5-A): Inglewood.

DIVISION II (4-AA): Torrance. (4-A): North Torrance, Redondo, West Torrance, Mira Costa, Bishop Montgomery.

DIVISION III (3-AA): Rolling Hills, Palos Verdes, Morningside, South Torrance. (3-A): St. Bernard.

DIVISION IV (2-AA): St. Mary’s. (2-A): El Segundo, Miraleste, Serra.

DIVISION V (1-A): Chadwick, Mary Star. (Small Schools): Wilmington Christian, South Bay Lutheran, Coast Christian, Harbor Christian.

Morningside girls basketball Coach Frank Scott is finding that life at the top can be distracting.

Since practice began two weeks ago, the defending state champions have been besieged by the media. ESPN filmed their first practice Nov. 13 for a program that will air Sunday at 7 a.m., and journalists from around the country have requested interviews, mostly with 6-foot-5 senior Lisa Leslie, considered by many the nation’s finest schoolgirl player.

“The first couple of days it was distracting,” Scott said. “But then I got smart and started scheduling (interviews) before and after practice. I don’t mind the attention, but we have to get some work under our belts.”

Aside from Leslie, Morningside also boasts a budding star in 6-4 sophomore Janet Davis, who earned All-CIF honors as a freshman. Scott says Leslie and Davis can dunk, a rare feat for females. Leslie did it in two games last season.

The Lady Monarchs open the season Dec. 9 in the Morningside Tournament.

PREP NOTES--Mira Costa’s girls volleyball team will play Lynbrook of San Jose in the State Division I finals at 7:30 Saturday night at Cal State Fullerton. The Mustangs (27-0) swept Granada of Livermore, 15-0, 15-5, 15-13, in the semifinals Tuesday, while Lynbrook (22-0) beat Corona del Mar, 15-9, 7-15, 15-10, 17-19, 15-12. This will be Mira Costa’s fourth appearance in a state final. The Mustangs won titles in 1982 and ’85 and were runners-up to Hueneme in ’86 . . . The Morningside boys basketball team will play an alumni team at 7 p.m. Friday in the campus gym . . . Said Leuzinger football Coach Steve Carnes, whose team blew a 13-6 lead and lost to Thousand Oaks, 18-13, Friday in the CIF Division II playoffs: “I keep rehashing the game over and over in my mind. ‘I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that.’ We had our shot and blew it.” . . . The 22nd annual South Torrance Holiday Soccer Tournament, featuring 16 girls teams and 32 boys teams, gets under way Saturday with the girls tournament at South. The boys tournament starts Dec. 8. Both run through Dec. 22.