Woodard Admits to Oversight

Nobody can say that Taft High Coach Jim Woodard doesn’t come clean when he messes up.

Woodard apologized to his team Tuesday for his coaching shortfall in last Friday’s 71-67 overtime loss to Cleveland, which cost the Toreadors a share of the North Valley League title.

Woodard admits that he erred when he kept starting guard Mark Walker, who finished with 13 points and eight rebounds, on the bench for the final 12 minutes.

“The guys we had in there were playing pretty well, but Mark should have been on the floor,” Woodard said. “I yell at them for their mistakes, so I’ll admit mine.”

Taft last won a league title in 1982 when it shared the old West Valley League title with Cleveland. Both were 3-A Division teams at the time.

Add Taft: The numbers were, quite frankly, numbing.

In Taft’s loss to Cleveland, the Toreadors took 93 shots, had 53 rebounds and committed just 10 turnovers. “Geez, you look at that and you think, ‘We must have killed ‘em,’ ” Woodard said. “But they only go by the final score.”

Trivia time: Can you name the two future NCAA All-Americans who started in the frontcourt for the Simi Valley boys’ basketball team in the 1986-87 season?

Net result: When Quartz Hill thumped Ridgecrest Burroughs in its Golden League finale last Friday, the Rebel players wanted to celebrate the league title in traditional fashion: by cutting down the nets.

The problem was, the nets belonged to Burroughs, the home team. Burroughs, a once-proud basketball school that won 48 consecutive home games from 1979-87, could not wait to shut down the gym and turn out the lights on a 1-9 league season.

“Hell, I told them I’d buy them six new nets,” Quartz Hill Coach Don Moore said.

Burroughs officials pondered the offer for a nanosecond, then promptly turned some switches and rolled up the baskets to ceiling level. No party for the Rebels on this night.

“It’s OK,” Moore said. “We come home happy.”

Tainted image: The Southern Section’s expanded playoff format, which allows any team to participate, will feature a record 385 teams, including winless Oak Park.

However, Hoover (7-16), which finished in a fifth-place tie in the Pacific League with a 2-8 record, will not be one of them.

“Nothing in life is free. I don’t see everybody walking around school in basketball uniforms and you have to work for a college degree,” said Coach Kirt Kohlmeier, who would have accepted a playoff bid if the Tornadoes had placed among the top three in league. “I have always felt that the playoffs were something special. We didn’t earn it and it’s not right the way (the format) is now.”

Records: As Santa Clara Coach Lou Cvijanovich steers the Saints for a run at their third consecutive state title, perhaps it is appropriate to look at some of the marks Cvijanovich has established at the Oxnard school.

In 33 seasons, his overall record stands at 644-205 (.759 winning percentage); his teams have won seven consecutive league titles to rank ninth on the Southern Section list; his teams have won 60 consecutive league games to rank fourth on the Southern Section list; Santa Clara has won 13 Southern Section titles in basketball; his playoff record is 84-19; and Santa Clara is riding a 15-game postseason win streak.

For some records, Cvijanovich is chasing himself. From 1956-65, Cvijanovich coached Santa Clara to nine consecutive league titles (sixth in Southern Section history) and 82 consecutive league victories (tie for second in Southern Section history).

Harbour to play baseball: Camarillo guard David Harbour, a senior who has accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Stanford, said he will return to the baseball diamond this spring. Harbour played first base on the junior varsity as a sophomore. “It should be a lot of fun to do something other than basketball,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

Trivia answer: Don MacLean, who this season was selected as a preseason basketball All-American at UCLA, and Scott Sharts, a Division II All-American for the Cal State Northridge baseball team last year.

Both started at Simi Valley as juniors; Sharts did not play basketball his senior year. Each is now a college junior.

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

AREA BASKETBALL TOP 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Last Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Cleveland North Valley 18-6 2 2 Santa Clara Frontier 21-4 3 3 Quartz Hill Golden 20-4 4 4 Notre Dame Mission 20-4 5 5 Taft North Valley 15-7 6 6 Thousand Oaks Marmonte 20-4 7 7 Channel Islands Marmonte 19-5 8 8 Granada Hills North Valley 18-5 9 9 Grant East Valley 18-2 10 10 Hart Foothill 18-6