Camarillo Loses 2 Starters to Illness; Harbour Sets School Scoring Mark

On a night when fatherly pride should have had Camarillo High basketball Coach John Harbour busting his buttons, a couple of medical reports put a dent in everyone’s day.

Harbour’s son, David, scored a school-record 50 points in Camarillo’s 78-56 win over Garfield in a first-round game of the Bosco Tech tournament Tuesday night.

Unfortunately, one reason Harbour had the ball so much--he made 16 of 28 field-goal attempts and scored 34 points in the first half alone--was because two other starters are sidelined with health problems.

And the attrition rate has been startling in its unexpectedness. Less than a week ago, Camarillo was celebrating its championship victory in the Page (Ariz.) tournament.

Now the coach is practically paging players in airports--by Tuesday, the team was down to nine healthy players.

Rick Schnell, a returning starter at point guard, walked into John Harbour’s second-period class on Tuesday morning complaining of a pain in his abdomen.

“I told him to get to the nurse right away,” said Harbour, who thought the senior had come down with the stomach flu.

The team left Schnell at school.

“When we got back, his car was still in the parking lot, so I knew something was wrong,” Harbour said.

Schnell, in fact, had his appendix removed Tuesday afternoon and will be out from 2-4 weeks, Harbour said.

Monday’s medical chart wasn’t much better. Center Scott Foster, a 6-foot-5 senior and a three-year starter, was diagnosed as having mononucleosis and will be sidelined from 2-6 weeks, Harbour said.

“We had three returning starters,” Harbour said, “and now two of them are gone.”

Sophomore Jeff Gordon, the team’s backup center, left with his family on Tuesday for a vacation in Michigan.

“They had it planned for weeks,” Harbour said of Gordon’s trip. “If he known this was going to happen and that he’d probably be playing, he might have stayed. I tried to call him but he’d already left for the airport.”

Is anybody left?

“We’re getting pretty close to having to using four guards,” Harbour said.