PREP NOTES : Carson Coach Calls Again for Single-Division Playoff

It’s no secret that Gene Vollnogle dislikes the format for the L.A. City Section football playoffs.

For years, the veteran coach at Carson High has advocated placing all 49 L.A. City high schools in one division, rather than splitting the teams into 4-A and 3-A divisions.

The reason? Vollnogle says there aren’t enough quality 4-A football teams to make for an interesting and competitive playoff tournament.

That certainly has been the case for the last two seasons. While there are 33 teams in the 3-A Division, there are only 16 in the 4-A Division. Of those 16, 12 make the playoffs, three from each of the four 4-A leagues.

And of those 12, the three qualifiers from the Pacific League have clearly proven themselves the class of the division. In Friday night’s 4-A semifinals, Pacific champion Carson faces third-place Crenshaw, while second-place Dorsey meets El Camino Real of the West Valley League.

It was the same repetitive scenario last season when Carson beat Pacific rivals Dorsey and Banning in the semifinals and finals on its way to the 4-A championship.

“That’s why the City (section) has to get away from this 4-A, 3-A stuff,” Vollnogle said. “There’s not that many good 4-A schools, but there are some top-notch 3-A schools that could beat most 4-A schools.

“We should be playing South Gate and Westchester and Venice. The top 3-A schools each year are good schools. (The City section) should go back and run eight leagues of six teams each, with the top two in each league (making the playoffs). That would give the playoffs a little more glamour.”

Vollnogle, though, doesn’t expect change in the playoff format in the near future.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen until they get someone downtown with a football background,” he said. “I thought (L.A. City Director of Athletics) Hal Harkness was going to do a job, but he’s sitting back and getting ready for retirement. And he’s not old enough.”

If Carson (9-1) ends the season with two wins, it will give Vollnogle 299 career coaching victories heading into the 1990 season, which he has announced will be his last.

Vollnogle might have had 300 wins this season, but the Colts lost their opener to Bishop Amat and had a bye the third week of the season because they were unable to schedule an opponent.

“It would have been nice,” he said. “Then if I decided to retire early, I would have 300 wins.”

He was joking, of course.

Vollnogle, the winningest coach in the history of California prep football, has a career record of 297-74-1 at Carson and Banning. His teams have won 17 league titles and nine L.A. City crowns.

Morningside forward Tyrone Paul lived up to his preseason billing Monday with four spectacular dunks and a game-high 19 points in the Monarchs’ 82-60 win over El Segundo in the Pacific Shores Basketball Tournament.

Morningside Co-Coach Ron Randle, who last summer said that Paul would be “the most exciting player in the South Bay,” was impressed after watching the 6-foot-5 senior defy gravity on several drives to the basket.

“He’s everything I said he was,” Randle said. “He gets up so fast.”

Randle says Paul has a vertical leap of 46 inches and can come within four inches of touching the top of the square on the backboard. He may be the best leaper to play in the South Bay since the legendary Joey Johnson was swatting shots and rattling rims for Banning in the mid-1980s.

“He has pogo sticks for legs,” Randle said of the 160-pound Paul. “He’s lean, but he’s awfully mean. He reminds me of (Illinois All-American) Kendall Gill.

“He’s by far the best player I’ve had, and that includes Elden Campbell, as far as ability in all aspects of the game.”

That’s quite an endorsement. The 6-11 Campbell starts for Clemson and led Morningside to the Southern Section 3-A title in 1985 as a junior.

All the news out of Morningside wasn’t good this week.

Starting guard Daniel Taylor will be sidelined for three months with a fractured finger on his left hand. He suffered the injury, which required insertion of a pin, last week in a scrimmage with Torrance.

“We’re hoping to have him back for the playoffs,” Randle said. “It’s really tragic because this is his senior year.”

Senior Martel Bland has moved into Taylor’s spot in the lineup.

Westchester High has lost the first battle in its attempt to overturn an L.A. City proposal to move the school to another sports conference, but the war appears far from over.

Westchester football Coach Larry Wein said the school plans to regroup and lodge another appeal Monday before the Interscholastic Athletic Committee, the governing body of L.A. City sports, at a downtown meeting.

“We have to make an impression Monday,” Wein said. “We’re going to try to convince them that the original conference plan was a good one.”

Wein said a releaguing subcommittee voted 5-3 to deny Westchester’s appeal and uphold a proposal to move the Comets 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.

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

PREP NOTES--The Morningside boys and girls basketball teams are ranked No. 1 in CIF-Southern Section preseason ratings. The Monarch girls top the 5-AA Division and the boys are No. 1 in 3-AA. Rolling Hills’ boys team is rated No. 4 in 3-AA. Six of the seven Camino Real League boys teams are ranked: St. Monica (No. 2, 5-AA), St. Bernard (No. 3, 3-A), Verbum Dei (No. 2, 2-AA), Pius X (No. 8, 2-AA), Serra (No. 2, 2-A) and El Segundo (No. 8, 2-A). The only Camino Real school not ranked is St. Anthony in 5-AA . . . Mira Costa middle blocker Kristal Attwood, who had 19 kills Saturday in the Mustangs’ 15-11, 15-8, 15-4 victory over Lynbrook High of San Jose in the State Division I girls volleyball final, was named girl athlete of the week for California by Cal-Hi Sports . . . South Torrance and Hawthorne each won two games Saturday to advance to the semifinals of the South Holiday Girls Soccer Tournament. South faces Royal of Simi Valley and Hawthorne meets Upland Dec. 16. The championship game is scheduled Dec. 22.