Agoura Already Matches Up With Marmonte Teams

It’s never too early to make a statement. Ask Kevin Pasky, whose Agoura basketball team has one more season in the Frontier League before venturing into the Marmonte League. Of course, the step up means no more twice yearly meetings with powerful Santa Clara--but, top to bottom, the Marmonte is undoubtedly tougher than the Frontier.

That is why Agoura’s early-season wins over Camarillo, Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks and a loss to Westlake--all members of the Marmonte League--mean far more than a surprising 3-1 mark.

“Before the season, that was what we talked about,” said Pasky, who is in his third year. “We wanted to make a statement that we’re a good basketball team and that the kids play hard. We want everybody . . . to know when we play, we play hard.”

According to the Southern Section, Agoura’s enrollment of 1,900 students will rank fifth in the eight-team Marmonte. Newbury Park, as any Panther coach will be more than happy to tell you, is last with 1,540.

“I think Agoura still has that reputation as a small 2-A school,” Pasky said. “It’s one thing I’ve had to do since I got here three years ago, and that’s change the attitude within the program as far as being a small school.”

Runnin’ wild: Greg Hess decided during the off-season that this version of his Westlake basketball team needed to run and push the ball into the attacking zone. What he didn’t know was that he was taking his life into his hands by doing it. Or that hockey goalie gear would be mandatory at his games.

In St. Monica tournament victories over Cathedral and Crossroads, the Warriors turned the ball over a combined 66 times. The play was especially ragged against Cathedral, which itself committed 27 turnovers--20 via Westlake steals.

“Balls were bouncing off walls. People in the front row were wearing helmets,” Hess said, laughing. “I had my son with me, and I had him sit behind me so I could protect him.

“I wondered, ‘Who’s coaching these guys?’ ”

The solution?

“Mistakes make you pay,” said Hess, who meant that mistakes make you run laps around the gym. “It’s negative reinforcement.”

Home is where The Park is: Newbury Park has found a home in the Nordhoff tournament, a preleague affair at which the Panthers have done well recently, including tournament championships this season and last.

This year, point guard Tim Lane was the most valuable player, and Chris Falzone and Joe Smigiel were selected to the all-tournament team. First-year Coach Greg Ropes said he’d return to the Ojai school to defend the title and likely would make it an annual affair.

“As our enrollment declines,” Ropes said, “we won’t get out of the Nordhoff tournament.”

Post man: Ray Velasquez wants the ball--and he wants it now!

Velasquez, a 6-foot-4, 260-pound senior center for Burroughs, relishes hitching his frame to the low post, planting his powerful legs, raising his left arm and shouting, “Here! Here!” as a teammate dribbles the ball.

And when he gets the ball, he knows what to do with it.

Velasquez, who transferred from Hoover this season, has scored a team-high 130 points in six games (21.6 average), including a 36-point performance against St. Francis in the Burbank-Hoover tournament. Velasquez, who was selected the tournament’s most valuable player, also can shoot from the outside, having made 10 of 16 three-point shots.

“He’s the one guy that’s been consistent for us,” said Coach Ira Sollod, whose team has dropped three in a row after a 3-0 start.

And on the seventh day. . . . : Antelope Valley played five games last week, losing to La Canada, then sweeping four games en route to the championship of the Cerritos-Gahr tournament. The Antelopes (5-2) played Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“I gave them Sunday off,” Coach Skip Adams said as a wisecrack.

Rebounding victory: Moorpark pulled off an incredible rally Monday night in a nonleague game against visiting Mary Star, erasing a 26-point deficit in the final 12 minutes to win, 65-55.

“It was the most incredible game that I’ve ever been a part of,” first-year Coach Tim Bednar said.

Trailing, 44-18, with 4:18 to play in the third quarter, Moorpark’s Toussaint Powdrill and an opponent were ejected for fighting. The incident, however, ignited the Musketeers (3-3), who outscored Mary Star, 47-11, the rest of the way. “You never want to encourage that,” Bednar said of the ejections. “And I sat my team down and got mad at them. We decided to channel that energy.”

Court sense: To the delight of Coach Greg Hilliard, Harvard replaced the 10-year old rubber floor on its basketball court with a traditional wood one last summer.

“The sound of squeaking feet is back,” he said. “It just isn’t basketball without that. Every year we’d have players with shin splints and sore knees. I think it had an effect on how we played at the end of the season.”

Sneak preview: City Section basketball fans wanting more than one match-up between North Hollywood and Grant, two of the area’s finer teams, may not have to wait until their Jan. 17 league game.

The Lancers and the Huskies are in opposite brackets of the North Hollywood tournament that begins Thursday. Provided both teams win their two preliminary games over lesser opponents, a preview of the league showdown between the unbeaten teams will take place Saturday night. “It’s something we’re aware of and we’d like to face them,” North Hollywood Coach Steve Miller admitted.

His counterpart was more cautious. “We have to get by a good Bell-Jeff team and then either Reseda or Granada Hills first,” Grant Coach Howard Levine said.

Staff writers Tim Brown, Sam Farmer, Vince Kowalick and Brian Murphy contributed to this notebook.