COMMUNITY COLLEGES : El Camino Coach Was Confident of Victory

After taking a quick look at the opponent, El Camino College women’s soccer Coach Bob Myers knew his team would bring home the school’s first state women’s soccer trophy.

“The Northern California teams aren’t as strong. You could tell when the game started that El Camino was going to prevail,” said Myers, who spent most of the season on jury duty, forcing assistant Jim Millinder to take over.

The top-ranked Warriors defeated third-ranked Santa Rosa, 3-1, last Sunday in the final of the state tournament at Chabot College in Hayward. The Warriors, winners of the Western State Conference, finished 18-0-6 and Santa Rosa finished 17-2-5.

El Camino forward Jennifer Stone (Hawthorne High) was named tournament most valuable player for scoring two goals against Santa Rosa. Freshman defender Kristi Blankenship (Torrance) scored the Warriors’ other goal. Both players were named to the all-conference first team.

Defender Danielle Boyer (Mira Costa), goalie Zalerie Dombrowski (Redondo) and defender Tricia Fuller (Rolling Hills) were also named to the first team.

Steve King, El Camino’s top basketball player, was missing Tuesday when the Warriors traveled to Wilmington for a game against South Bay opponent Harbor College. King missed the team bus, according to Coach Ron McClurkin, who was clearly angry at his standout player.

The coach said perhaps King had and asthma attack. On Friday King scored only five points in El Camino’s 69-63 victory over Hancock in the first round of the Santa Barbara tournament. Despite the respiratory problem, the 6-foot-5 freshman from Inglewood High is the team’s top scorer. The folks at Harbor are probably glad he didn’t show up.

By halftime the Warriors held a comfortable 14-point lead. It only got worse in the second half, thanks to poor Harbor shooting and an array of turnovers. El Camino won, 95-57, dropping the Seahawks to 5-4. The Warriors are 9-3.

Four El Camino players scored in double figures against the Seahawks. Sophomore guard Mike Houck had a game-high 26 points and Keishaun Darthard had 22. Freshmen Major Whitlock, a redshirt transfer from the University of Montana, and Rick Robison (Torrance) scored 11 and 10 points respectively.

Former El Camino standout David Keeter has proven to be one of the only bright spots for Cal State Northridge’s basketball team. The Matadors (1-4) have taken several beatings in their Division I debut, including a 113-89 loss to Colorado, where Larry Lockley, Keeter’s former teammate at El Camino, plays this season. Keeter is Northridge’s top scorer (15.7 points a game) and best three-point shooter. The 6-foot-5 guard-forward was a two-time All-South Coast Conference player for El Camino the past two seasons.

As a sophomore last year he averaged 16 points and made 60% of his three-point shots. Keeter sparked El Camino through the playoffs. The Warriors lost to eventual state champion Rancho Santiago in the semifinals of the state tournament at UC Irvine.

The final JC Grid-Wire national football poll lists El Camino (9-2) at No. 5. Coffeyville of Kansas was No. 1 with an 11-0 record, Taft was No. 2 at 8-1, Bakersfield was No. 3 at 10-1 and Dixie of Utah (10-2) was No. 4.

Thirteen other California teams made the poll’s top 30. Among them are San Francisco (No. 8), College of Sequoias (No. 11), Diablo Valley (No. 12), Glendale (No. 13), Butte (No. 14), Pasadena (No. 15), Moorpark (No. 18), and Orange Coast (No. 19).

The Grid-Wire also came out with its annual scholar/athlete All-American list and El Camino defensive lineman Tom Fakourfar made the first team. The 6-foot-2, 255-pound lineman is a pre-med major with a 3.3 grade-point average.