Hamilton Tournament Has Fiery Finish

In the cold of last week, David Uyeshima, Hamilton High’s boys’ basketball coach, had a heating problem.

As fans made their way inside the Hamilton gymnasium last Friday to watch the 3 p.m. seventh-place game of the school’s holiday tournament between Hollywood and Roosevelt, smoke from a burning floor behind a row of bleachers prompted Uyeshima to call the fire department.

“We had some bleacher problems that had to be fixed,” Uyeshima said. “Earlier in the day, we had a guy come in and do some welding and some sparks fell to the floor and started to burn. There were no flames or anything, but you could smell the smoke.”

The firefighters had no problem finding the source of the smoke, but in the process of putting out the fire, they tore away part of the gymnasium floor. They also blocked the tournament from being moved into the girls’ gym when shutting down the power in the building, forcing Uyeshima to call off the four tournament games.

“The fire department came in and did their job, but it stopped the tournament,” Uyeshima said. “There is about $10,000 worth of damage done to the gym.”

Los Angeles University and Palisades were scheduled to play in the championship game but will have to wait until they meet in their regular scheduled Coastal Conference game Jan. 11.

“Both schools have agreed that when they meet, it will count as our title game,” Uyeshima said. “In the five or six years we have been holding this tournament, there has never been anything close to this happening before.”

In last week’s five-team Gold Coast Artesia Classic, DeMatha High of Hyattsville, Md., and Manual Arts needed big efforts Saturday to finish the modified round-robin tournament undefeated.

DeMatha, whose Coach Morgan Wootten has a 937-135 career record, had to rally to defeat Artesia, 57-51, with Vaughn Jones scoring 19 points. Artesia (6-1), The Times’ top-rated Southern Section preseason team and defending State Division II champion, led by a point at the start of the fourth quarter, but was outscored, 22-15, in the final eight minutes. Artesia, which defeated Hayward Moreau, 76-53, last Friday, was led by sophomores Charles O’Bannon and Avondre Jones, who scored 15 points apiece against DeMatha.

Manual Arts, The Times’ top City Section preseason team and defending City 4-A Division champion, won both of its tournament games but had to rally in the second half to defeat Moreau, 75-70, with Dwain Bradberry scoring 26 points. The Toilers, who defeated Escondido San Pasqual, 83-67, Thursday, placed two players, Bradberry and Kevin Beal, on the all-tournament team. Erik Meek of San Pasqual, a 6-foot-10 center who has committed to Duke, was named the tournament’s most valuable player. He averaged 30.5 points and 15 rebounds in two games. Meek made 21 of 29 field-goal attempts in San Pasqual’s two losses.

Dick Barrett, Lompoc football coach, announced last week that he is stepping down after five seasons with the Braves. Last fall, Barrett led Lompoc to its first Southern Section title, when the Braves defeated Arroyo Grande, 12-7, for the Division VII title.

“I did not do it because we won the whole thing,” said Barrett, who has a 48-16 record at Lompoc, with three Northern League titles and a 26-2 record over the past two seasons. “I let them (Lompoc school administrators) know last spring, but I did not tell the team or my staff until now.

“I just feel that I need to spend more time with my family. It’s been a big commitment coaching here. I plan to take a year off from coaching and then come back to coach at a lower level.”

Tebb Kusserow, the winningest football coach in Santa Monica High history, also announced last week that he will not return.

Kusserow, who will remain at the school as a physical education instructor, said that a factor in his decision was the health of his father-in-law, Oreste Cha, whose condition was recently diagnosed as cancer.

Kusserow’s announcement, which came at the end of Santa Monica’s football banquet Wednesday night, came as a surprise to many, considering that his youngest son, Tim, is a junior defensive back for the Vikings. This fall, Santa Monica failed to make the Southern Section playoffs for the first time in 15 years, finishing with a 3-5-1 record. In his 17 seasons at Santa Monica, Kusserow finished with a 122-49-5 record.

Prep Notes

In five overtimes, Moreno Valley Canyon Springs defeated Perris, 84-80, in an Ivy League boys’ basketball opener for both teams last Tuesday. Canyon Springs outscored Perris, 7-3, in the final overtime after having Perris forward Elzie Love make shots to tie the game at the end of regulation and the second overtime period. Love scored 36 points, including four three-point baskets, but fouled out of the game late in the fourth overtime.

Santa Ana Mater Dei, the defending State boys’ Division I champion, is the top-seeded team in the 26th Orange Holiday Tournament that begins Wednesday at Chapman College. The Monarchs (6-3) have won their last four games and could meet second-seeded San Francisco Riordan in a rematch of last season’s State championship game, which Mater Dei won, 62-58. Capistrano Valley is seeded third and is coming off an impressive showing in winning last week’s Irvine tournament. . . . In the Irvine tournament’s consolation game, guard Tes Whitlock scored 68 points to lead Loara to a 112-102 victory over Saddleback. Whitlock’s total places him in fourth place on the Southern Section single-game scoring list. He made 20 of 31 shots from the floor and 23 of 25 free throws.

Crenshaw guard Kevin Ollie was named MVP of the Los Angeles Officials tournament and scored 23 points to lead the Cougars past Los Angeles Washington, 85-78, in the championship game. . . . Freshman guard Cameron Murray of Glendora was named MVP of a Glendora tournament for the second consecutive week when he scored 30 points to lead the Tartans to a 65-41 win over Temple City in the championship game. Murray was named MVP of Glendora’s first holiday tournament Dec. 15.