Cleveland Slide Stirs Memories

To Greg Herrick, it seems as if it happened yesterday. As a rookie basketball coach Herrick took it on the chin again and again and again. Recent developments at the school where he formerly coached brought the sinking feeling back with a rush.

During his first season at Cleveland High in 1979-80, Herrick fretted and frowned as his team lost three consecutive games, which was bad enough. Toss in the fact that the losses came in the Cavaliers’ first three games of the season and it is obvious why Herrick remembers the defeats so vividly.

“We lost to North Hollywood on a tip-in at the buzzer, then we lost two tournament games,” recalled Herrick, now the coach at Hart. “I seriously thought I was in the wrong business.”

After falling to Washington in the final of the L. A. Invitational on Saturday night, the 1990-91 Cavaliers are on a three-game losing streak under first-year Coach Kevin Crider. It is the first such skein since Herrick’s debut 11 seasons ago.

Hot-and-cold Cleveland (10-5) started slowly this season with a 1-2 mark, then won nine in a row. The Cavaliers lost their final two games in the Artesia tournament before losing to Washington in a tournament that was played over a three-week period.

It seems unlikely that the Cavaliers will stretch the streak to four--they play a mediocre San Fernando team in a Northwest Valley Conference game today at 4 p.m.

It initially was believed that Cleveland lost three in a row during the season before three-time All-City Section selection Trevor Wilson (UCLA, Atlanta Hawks) joined the varsity. Herrick said that while the 1982-83 team finished a disappointing 8-12, it never lost more than two consecutive games.

Cleveland never lost three in a row under former Coach Bob Braswell, now an assistant at Cal State Long Beach. Braswell, a Cleveland graduate who played on the 1979-80 team, took over for his former coach in 1985-86.

Lofty goals: When first-year Monroe Coach Wendell Greer Jr. sat down with the Vikings (9-5, 2-3 in Valley Pac-8 Conference play) at the beginning of the year to talk about team goals, his players voiced their main objective loud and clear.

“They all said they wanted to be like North Hollywood,” Greer recalled. “They want what North Hollywood had last year.”

What North Hollywood had last year was a City 3-A title. This goal seems ambitious for a team that finished with a 4-15 record last season, but the Vikings already are one win shy of their total of the past four seasons combined.

“The losing atmosphere is gone, and now they’re hungry,” Greer said. “We want to beat somebody that everyone thinks is good.”

The Vikings, who will get such a chance when they visit North Hollywood (8-5, 4-1) today at 4 p.m., have good reason to be hungry.

In an effort to encourage a productive offense, Greer promised to take the team out for pizza whenever the Vikings score 100-plus points. Monroe has done it twice, beating Sylmar (110-61) and Jefferson (105-92), and will munch pizza Friday afternoon before the Vikings take on Van Nuys.

“I’m down two, but I can’t complain,” Greer said.

Staff writers Steve Elling and Paige A. Leech contributed to this notebook.

AREA BASKETBALL TOP 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Granada Hills North Valley 12-2 2 2 Cleveland North Valley 10-5 3 3 Santa Clara Frontier 14-4 4 5 Notre Dame Mission 12-3 5 6 Thousand Oaks Marmonte 10-2 6 9 Quartz Hill Golden 13-3 7 8 Taft North Valley 9-4 8 7 Channel Islands Marmonte 10-2 9 10 Camarillo Marmonte 8-2 10 NR Grant East Valley 10-2

NR--Not ranked.