SPORTSCOPE : Muir, Walnut Athletes Lead Meet Contingent

Sprinter Inger Miller of defending state girls track champion Muir High and long and triple jumper Juliana Yendork of Walnut will lead a strong contingent of valley athletes at the 23rd annual Arcadia Invitational Track Meet on Saturday.

Field events start at Arcadia High at 5:30 p.m. and running events at 6:30.

Miller heads a strong squad of Muir athletes entered in both girls and boys events. She will compete in the invitational 100-meter dash and anchor the 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams, where she is expected to receive her strongest challenges from out-of-state powers Tilden of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Sterling of Houston.

The senior is the top returning sprinter in the nation with a top time of 11.48 seconds in the 100 meters. She also competes on a 400 relay team that has a national-best clocking of 46.36 seconds and a 1,600 relay squad that was fourth fastest in the nation at 3:47.04 last year.

Muir will also field two other outstanding sprinters, senior Stacie Moore in the 1,600 relay and freshman Deanna Knowles, who has a swift clocking of 11.8 seconds in the 100 meters.

Another standout for the Mustangs is senior Akua Southerland, who will compete in both the 100-meter low hurdles and the triple jump.

Muir is also well represented in boys events. The Mustangs are strongest in the invitational 400 and 1,600 relays, where they have posted marks of 42 seconds and 3:18.8 to rank among the favorites.

The Muir sprint corps is paced by Mike Sulcer, who has a top time of 10.6 seconds in the 100 meters; Vincent Grant, who has run the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 38.5 seconds, and Marquette Ennis, who is entered in the 400 meters with a time of 48.9 seconds. The Mustangs also have a talented middle-distance runner in Hassan McCullough, who has posted a top qualifying mark of 1:55.8.

Walnut’s Yendork enters the meet as the top returning performer in the nation in both the long and triple jumps. She tuned up for the Arcadia Invitational by establishing a national indoor record of 42-5 1/2 in the triple jump at the National Scholastic Indoor Meet in Syracuse, N.Y., last month.

A junior, Yendork is also the leading long jumper in the nation with a best of 20-9 last season. She will also compete in the 200-meter dash, where she has a swift clocking of 24.8 seconds.

Two other outstanding individual performers from the valley will be Billy Ivey of Nogales in the long and triple jumps and Karen Hecox of South Hills in the 1,600-meter run.

Ivey is one of the best in the nation in the triple jump, where he produced a leap of 49- 1/4 at the Bishop Amat Relays in Walnut last week. The senior is also a contender in the long jump with a best of 23-1.

Hecox, a senior, had the fifth best time in the nation among athletes returning from last season with a time of 4:53.90 in the 1,600 meters and a mark of 5:00.5 this season.

Duarte will also send a large group of athletes into the meet including Don Jackson, who is among the top entrants in the 300 hurdles with a time of 38.7 seconds, and sprinter Phetima Woods in the girls invitational 100 meters. Woods has posted a qualifying time of 11.8 seconds in the event.

Pasadena will also be represented in the boys division. The Bulldogs have a strong sprint team headed by Mark Noriega, who will compete in the invitational 100 meters with a best of 10.5 seconds. Pasadena is also entered in the seeded 400 and 1,600 relays, where they have posted times of 42.7 seconds and 3:23.3.

Forward Jerry Laterza, who led Walnut High to its first CIF Southern Section boys soccer title in March, has been named offensive player of the year in the 1-A Division.

Laterza, a sophomore who topped the Mustangs in scoring with 26 goals and 18 assists, was one of three Walnut players selected to the 1-A Division first team, and Doug Doner was selected as 1-A co-coach of the year along with Afshin Ghotbi and Louis Bilowitz of La Canada.

The other two All-CIF first team selections for Walnut were sophomore goalkeeper Kyle Buz’zard and senior defender Lee Da Silva. Buz’zard finished fifth on the Southern Section single-season list for saves with 262 and posted a 1.23 goals-against average.

The Mustangs, who defeated La Canada in overtime by a 3-1 score in the title game and finished the season with a 19-8 record, also placed senior midfielder Marty Nichols on the second team.

Other first team selections in the 1-A included senior defender Ricardo Mira of Sierra Vista and senior midfielder Matt Morse of Temple City.

Among first team choices in other divisions were junior defender William Braxton of Claremont in the 4-A; senior midfielder Chris Cardoza of Diamond Bar and junior forward Reggie Recio of Baldwin Park in the 3-A, and senior defenders Paul Contreras and Kevin Mullen of La Salle and senior midfielder Sebastian Garcia of Webb in Small Schools.

The Cal Poly Pomona women’s softball team has struggled to a 3-7 record early in the Big West Conference season and the schedule does not get any easier for the Broncos this week.

Pomona must visit Pacific at 5 p.m. Friday and Fresno State at 1 p.m. Saturday in a pair of doubleheaders. Fresno State is ranked No. 2 in the NCAA Division I.

The Broncos, who have a 20-17 record, have been listed as high as 10th in early-season Division I polls but have since fallen out of the top 20.

Pomona has been led offensively by junior catcher Kelly Hilliard, who has a .293 batting average, and sophomore shortstop Shellie McCall, who is hitting .278. The top pitchers for the Broncos are junior Nicky Luce, who has an 11-7 record and 1.07 earned-run average, and Bonnie Ebenkamp, a freshman from Diamond Bar High who is 4-1 with an 0.97 ERA.

For the second consecutive season, center Amy Walter of the Azusa Pacific women’s basketball team has received honorable mention on the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics All-America team.

Walter, a 6-2 senior from Livermore, averaged 17 points and 9.5 rebounds to pace the Cougars to an 18-12 record and their third straight appearance in the NAIA District 3 playoffs. She was previously named to the All-District 3 and All-Golden State Athletic Conference teams.

As a junior, Walter led the Cougars by averaging 22.3 points and 10.3 rebounds. She is second on the school’s all-time list for points and rebounds and leads in free throws.

“It will be very hard to replace Amy Walter because she did so many things for us,” Cougar Coach Sue Hebel said.

Senior Anne Backus of the Pomona-Pitzer women’s basketball team, who sparked the Sagehens to a 15-10 record last season, has been named to the five-player Kodak NCAA Division III District 8 All-Region team.

Backus, a 5-10 forward, averaged 17.4 points and a team-leading 8.6 rebounds and 6.6 assists. She had earlier been selected to the All-Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team and led the conference in three-point field goals, making 30 of 90 attempts.

The Pomona-based Casa Colina Condors men’s wheelchair basketball team will bid for its seventh title in the last 11 years when it competes in the U.S. national championships Friday and Saturday in Lexington, Ky.

The Condors advanced to the four-team championship tournament with a 67-62 win over the Los Angeles Stars in the Far West Wheelchair Basketball Sectionals on March 25 in Claremont.