Mid-Valley Teams Taking a Beating at Hands of Central League Foes

The Mid-Valley League is nearly finished with its two-week break from Valley Pac-8 Conference play in basketball, and the area teams are probably looking forward to seeing the last of the Central League.

Each Mid-Valley League team (Canoga Park, Monroe, North Hollywood and Van Nuys) is scheduled to play four games against Central League teams (Fremont, Jordan, Locke and South Gate) from the Southeastern Conference before resuming league play next Wednesday.

The Valley Pac-8 and Southeastern conferences are the only two nine-team conferences in the City Section.

The four Mid-Valley teams have posted a 1-11 record against Central opponents. North Hollywood accounted for the only win with a 56-54 victory over Locke last week, and the Huskies needed overtime to win that one.

Mid-Valley teams have lost to Central opponents by an average score of 78-57.

Wolves dancing: Van Nuys (9-9, 5-3 in league play) earned a share of first place in the Mid-Valley League by beating co-leader North Hollywood, 62-46, two weeks ago.

With the league break, Van Nuys has been able to stay on top for two weeks.

“This is really neat for us, because we’ve been on the bottom for a long time,” second-year Coach Ken Lee said. “The kids worked hard all summer for this.”

Van Nuys finished last in the league last season with a 1-9 record and was 2-19 overall.

Hunters in the hunt: Canoga Park (7-14, 4-4) managed to remain alive in the race for a playoff berth with an 88-86 win over host Monroe.

With one minute to play and the score tied, 86-86, Canoga Park employed a four-corners stall and ran the clock down to eight seconds before Coach Jeff Davis called a timeout.

After an inbounds pass, Lindsey Dunbar could not find an open man underneath so he shot from the top of the key and connected with three seconds left to win the game for the Hunters.

Wave of points: Davis had an unusual reaction after Fremont annihilated Canoga Park, 106-56.

He did not mind. Fremont, ranked No. 1 in the state by Cal-Hi Sports, ran the floor with its starters deep into the fourth quarter.

“I felt like I was in the middle of the ocean and a tidal wave was coming and there was nothing we could do about it.” Davis said. “But they’re playing for a national ranking, so I can understand that.”

Bench help: Quartz Hill sits atop the Golden League standings primarily because of the sterling play of its rabbit-quick three-guard trio of Chris Young, Lee Allen and Danny Prince. But, contrary to popular belief, the Rebels do have an inside game.

Post players Denny Klein and Cyril Franklin are pulling down eight and five rebounds a game. What’s more, the Rebels have gotten a real shot in the arm from the bench play of Darrell Marshall.

Marshall, a 6-foot-4 senior, has come back strongly from an early-season ankle injury and is averaging 5.2 points and 4.8 rebounds. He also provides more muscle underneath, where teams hope to exploit the Rebels. In last week’s 61-37 win over Antelope Valley, Marshall had eight points and seven rebounds.

Rebound action: Adrian Sellers looked as though he’d had his pocket picked. Not quite. He was just mugged from behind.

In one of the most critical plays of Cleveland High’s 89-86 overtime defeat of Granada Hills last week, Sellers apparently was fouled on a key rebound but was called for traveling.

“There is no doubt in my mind he was fouled,” Granada Hills Coach Bob Johnson said. “Twice.”

The stage: With Granada Hills trailing, 87-86, and 15 seconds left in overtime, the Highlanders’ Jevon Lee missed the second of two free throws and Jerry Allen grabbed the rebound. Allen missed inside and Sellers’ follow shot missed.

The incident: Sellers again controlled the rebound, pump-faked, and was called for traveling. Cleveland’s Kenny Collins then made two free throws with five seconds left for the game’s final points.

The conflicting evidence: “We just kept going for the ball because he kept pump-faking,” said Cleveland center Sean Bankhead, who along with teammate Kayheed Murray applied the defensive pressure on Sellers. “Kayheed was on his back, but they didn’t call the foul.”

The wonder years: Montclair Prep basketball players have been receiving a special treat: a few tips on how to play the game from former UCLA All-American and Wooden Award winner Marques Johnson.

Johnson’s son Kris is a freshman who starts for the varsity. Sometimes Kris is accompanied to practice by his father.

Most of the Mountie players were in diapers when Johnson was lighting up Pauley Pavilion. Has Coach Howard Abrams explained the significance of Johnson’s visits?

“Yeah, we’ve shown them films,” Abrams said. “They have a pretty good idea of who he was.”

True colors: Hart players have worn patches of the American flag on their jerseys for the past five games as a tribute to U. S. military forces in the Persian Gulf. The team holds a moment of silence before each game. Coach Greg Herrick says the purpose of the patches is not a motivational tactic.

“Other people use this tragic event to motivate their team,” he said. “We just want people to know that we’re concerned about the situation and (we’re) aware of what’s going on over there.”

Herrick found patches for only the team’s road uniforms at an Army surplus store in Reseda but was able to obtain enough for the home uniforms at the American Legion post in Newhall.

Bankrupt: Simi Valley dubbed its drive for a sixth consecutive Marmonte League title “Pick Six,” but the Pioneers fell to 8-12 overall and 3-6 in league play after losing their fourth consecutive game Friday.

Simi Valley’s 12 losses are the most since the 1982-83 season, the last in which the Pioneers did not win at least a share of the league title and finished 12-12.

The Pioneers are within one loss of ensuring their first losing season since 1980-81 when they finished 10-13. “We’re well aware of things like that,” Coach Dean Bradshaw said. “We’re not used to losing around here, and we don’t like it.”

Staff writers Steve Elling, Kirby Lee, Paige A. Leech, Brian Murphy and Jeff Riley contributed to this notebook.

AREA BASKETBALL TOP 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

(Records through Tuesday’s games)

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Cleveland North Valley 16-5 2 2 Santa Clara Frontier 19-4 3 5 Quartz Hill Golden 17-4 4 3 Granada Hills North Valley 16-4 5 4 Notre Dame Mission 17-4 6 8 Thousand Oaks Marmonte 16-3 7 6 Taft North Valley 13-6 8 9 Channel Islands Marmonte 15-4 9 10 Grant East Valley 15-2 10 7 Camarillo Marmonte 12-5

NR--Not ranked.