PREP NOTES / ROB FERNAS : Dad Lifts Westchester Player Suspension--Just in Time

Senior forward Robert Hamiter has sat out all but one game for Westchester High’s basketball team this season because he was ruled academically ineligible.

Not by the school. By his father.

Westchester Coach Ed Azzam said Hamiter’s father, in a unique arrangement, does not allow his son to play unless he maintains at least a 3.0 grade-point average.

L.A. City Section athletes must carry at least a 2.0 GPA with no F grades to remain eligible. Hamiter meets those standards, but he has watched the Comets from the sidelines in 14 of their first 15 games because of his father’s edict.

“I’m behind the dad 100%,” Azzam said. “It’s been a little frustrating, though. The other guys are playing well and playing hard, but we’re not real big. We have a 6-8 junior (LeRoi O’Brien), but everybody else is around 6 foot.”

The 6-foot-5 Hamiter, a transfer from Florida, has not played since the Comets’ opener against Cleveland of Reseda. Over the holidays, though, his progress report indicated his grades are again above a 3.0 average.

The timing couldn’t be better. Westchester opens Coastal Conference play Friday against University High of West L.A.

“He makes us a notch better,” Azzam said.

Carson basketball Coach Rich Masson was happy with his team’s performance last week in the Las Vegas Valley Tournament, but not with the officiating.

The Colts lost to Bonanza of Las Vegas, 73-64, in Saturday’s championship game after three of their best players--Nkosi Littleton, Michael Ross and Bobby Kelly--fouled out in the second half.

“It’s tough to beat a Vegas team in Vegas,” Masson said. “It was a bad scene.”

Masson said the officiating was so one-sided that a Las Vegas sportswriter apologized to him after Saturday’s game.

“It was the second-worst officiating I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The worst was a few years ago when we played Rex Chapman’s (high school) team in Kentucky.”

No one said life on the road was easy.

Chris Keldorf, the talented St. Bernard sophomore who plays quarterback for the football team and is sixth man for the basketball team, lives in Manhattan Beach and is the son of Russ Keldorf, who helps run the Manhattan Beach Youth Basketball League at Mira Costa High.

How does Mira Costa Coach Glenn Marx feel about losing one of the city’s top basketball players to a neighboring Catholic school?

“I don’t have any problem with it,” he said. “There’s always been a good relationship between St. Bernard and Mira Costa. (Keldorf’s) family wanted him to go to a Catholic school environment.”

Marx, basketball coach at St. Bernard in the late 1970s, pointed out that when Keldorf enrolled at St. Bernard in the fall of 1988, Mira Costa was coming off terrible seasons in football and basketball.

Since then, both programs have undergone improvement under Marx, in his second season at Mira Costa, and first-year football Coach Larry Petrill.

“I think we’ll be able to attract some of the Catholic kids from now on,” Marx said. “I wish him well, but I don’t want to lose any more Keldorfs.”

Rolling Hills basketball Coach Cliff Warren, who has guided the Titans to three straight Bay League titles, expects a dogfight for the championship this season.

“It’s up for grabs,” he said. “I think everybody is about the same. I don’t think anybody is great. But at the same time, everybody is good.”

Morningside is an overwhelming favorite to win its second straight Ocean League crown, but Co-Coach Carl Franklin says it will not be as easy as some people think.

“I think there is a lot of parity,” he said. “From what I’ve seen, most (Ocean League) teams are winning games in the preseason.”

Franklin might be overestimating his competition. Of the eight Ocean teams that opened league play Wednesday, only two (Morningside and Mira Costa) had winning records.

If anyone deserves an injury-free basketball season, it’s St. Bernard senior Martin Smith.

The 6-4 guard missed his sophomore season with a knee injury and was sidelined most of last year with a stress fracture in his leg.

So far this year, though, he’s healthy and making up for lost time. He entered Wednesday’s Camino Real League opener against El Segundo averaging 15 points a game, tops on St. Bernard.

“He’s really been a pleasant surprise,” Coach Jim McClune said.

At 11-3, Narbonne’s basketball team is off to its best start in years.

And the Gauchos’ record might be even better if 6-2 forward Derrick Dukes, a first-team All-Pacific League choice last season, had not moved to Chicago during the off-season.

PREP NOTES--Rolling Hills guard Steve Clover set his second tournament scoring record last week with 108 points in four games in the Pepsi Classic at Seattle. The week before, Clover scored a record 124 points in four games to lead the Titans to the championship of the Beverly Hills Tournament. The 6-4 senior is averaging 26 points and five three-point shots a game . . . The powerful Morningside boys and girls basketball teams each lost their last two games in out-of-state tournaments last week. The boys lost to Bonanza of Las Vegas, 77-76, and Bishop O’Dowd of Oakland, 58-54, in the Las Vegas Valley Tournament, while the Lady Monarchs lost to Cannon County of Tennessee, 72-43, and South Pike of Magnolia, Miss., 67-64, in the Best of the U.S. Invitational at Shelbyville, Tenn . . . Five members of the South Bay Unit of the California Football Officials Assn. were selected to work the CIF-Southern Section Division II final between Santa Barbara and Muir on Dec 9: Bill Agopian of Westchester, Chad Brown of Carson, Robert Salcido of Manhattan Beach, Larry Daniels of Hermosa Beach and Greg Fucci of Redondo Beach . . . Former North Torrance High and USC volleyball star Lawrence Hom is a graduate assistant coach at USC.

South Bay’s Boys Basketball Top 10

Selected by Times Sportswriters Through Games of Jan. 2

Rank, School, League Record 1 Morningside (Ocean) 9-3 2 Carson (Pacific) 10-5 3 Narbonne (Pacific) 11-3 4 Rolling Hills (Bay) 8-4 5 Westchester (Metro) 8-6 6 Hawthorne (Bay) 7-5 7 St. Bernard (Camino Real) 5-5 8 Palos Verdes (Bay) 6-5 9 Leuzinger (Bay) 6-2 10 Mira Costa (Ocean) 6-3