Former Cleveland Star Hill Helps Washington State Over Hump

After Cleveland High’s Eddie Hill committed to play basketball for Washington State last season, he had to endure some razzing from friends.

After all, a Washington State team that had lost 17 of 18 Pacific 10 Conference games and its last 18 games of the 1989-90 season appeared to be headed nowhere.

This season the Cougars (15-6, 7-4 and second in the Pac-10) may be headed for the NCAA tournament, and Hill, a Times All-Valley selection, has played more than a bit part in the startling turnaround.

“Everybody coming in is used to winning,” said Hill, one of seven newcomers on the team and a graduate of Cleveland’s highly successful program. “I think I’ve surprised other people more than I’ve surprised myself.”

Valued for his outside shooting ability, Hill scored 21 points against Cal on Saturday and earlier scored a career-high 23 against Washington. He is averaging 7.4 points.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Eddie and Rob (Corkrum) are two of the best freshmen in the league,” Washington State Coach Kelvin Sampson said recently.

Having impressed his coach, Hill also has no doubt changed the opinions of those who questioned his college choice. “When I see them in the summer, I’ll do a lot of talking,” Hill said.

Running it down: After Pierce defeated Compton, 31-5, in a nonconference baseball game, Pierce coaches decided not to give the hard-luck Tartars a public relations beating as well.

Rather than further humiliate Compton, the Pierce coaches lopped a couple of touchdowns off their total and reported the score as 17-4.

“We didn’t want to embarrass them. They had a bad day, and they’re nice guys,” Pierce co-Coach Bob Lyons said. “We were not trying to run the score up; it just happened. . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen a score like that.”

One question then, coach: When the bogus score was reported, why was Compton docked a run?

Vaquero’s lament: Brian Beauchemin has known little but success in winning more than 200 games during his 12 seasons as basketball coach at Glendale College, but this season he said, “It’s just been worst-case scenario quite a bit for us.”

With Glendale (10-18) struggling through his first sub-.500 season at the school, Beauchemin will end up closer to 20 losses than to the 20-victory mark he hit in nine previous campaigns.

Ironically, part of Glendale’s problems this season stem from past success. Last season, Glendale started five sophomores, and as long as those players were in the program, recruits were reluctant to go to a school where opportunities for playing time seemed limited.

Lacking a nucleus of experienced sophomores, Glendale has had difficulty in close games and has failed to win more than three games in a row.

Back in action: Cal State Northridge’s Garrett Noel returned to javelin competition in spectacular fashion last Saturday by throwing a personal best of 220 feet, 8 inches in an all-comers track and field meet at Northridge.

Noel, who placed ninth in the 1989 Division II championships as a freshman, was forced to red-shirt last season because of lower back problems.

Noel’s previous best was 210-4, but Northridge Coach Don Strametz reported that all six of Noel’s throws Saturday were at least 215 feet.

“You could have put a Hula-Hoop out there and that’s where all of his throws would have landed,” Strametz said. “That’s how consistent he was.”

Noel exceeded the provisional qualifying mark of 219-10 for the NCAA Division I championships in June and also set a “modern-day” school record.

A new, redesigned javelin has been in use since April of 1986. The javelin used before that could be thrown farther than its newer version. Records for each are kept separately.

Provisional qualifiers are used to bring the fields at the NCAA championships up to their desired number of entrants in events which are lacking a required number of automatic qualifiers.

Although the automatic qualifying standard in the men’s javelin (242-9) is more than 22 feet farther than Noel has thrown, Strametz figures that the sophomore from Crespi High could throw that far by season’s end.

“Garrett has to learn to stay within himself,” Strametz said. “He has to stay sound technically. He can’t just go out there and try to (strong-arm) every throw. He did that before and it caused all kinds of problems.”

In order to keep Noel’s back in line, Strametz plans to limit the number of meets he throws in.

“He’s not going to be throwing every week, that’s for sure,” Strametz said. “The goal is to keep him healthy. . . . all year.”

Statwatch: Andre Chevalier has 40 steals, needing seven to move into third place on Northridge’s single-season list. Derrick Gathers holds the top two spots. He had 58 in the 1988-89 season and a record 62 last season. . . .

Through 30 games, the Valley women’s basketball team had shattered the school record with 97 three-point baskets, and three players had broken the individual mark. Katina Mines (41), Tisa Rush (34) and Sylvia Castaneda (13) all eclipsed Bernadette Tillis’ record of 12. . . .

Averaging 104.3 points a game, the Antelope Valley men’s basketball team leads the state in scoring and is comfortably ahead of last year’s school-record 97.3 average. . . .

J. R. Rider (34.1-point average) and Tony Madison (25.8) both could afford to go scoreless Wednesday night and still top Mike Adams’ Antelope Valley season-record 24.3.

Andre downs a giant: Scouts from the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Clippers found their way to Matador Gymnasium on Monday night to see guard Von McDade of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, one of the top scorers in the nation. But McDade, who scorched CSUN for 30 points--his season average--Jan. 17 in Milwaukee, missed all six of his field-goal attempts and was limited to six free throws in Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s 95-77 win.

“I thought we did a great job on him,” Northridge assistant coach Tom McCollum said. “Andre (Chevalier) really spent himself on him. We caused him a lot of problems and then he started seeking for himself and he fouled out.”

Fall guy: Northridge swingman Keith Gibbs had no inkling he was ill until he collapsed onto the court Monday against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Gibbs said the most frightening aspect of the incident was the temporary blindness he suffered in one eye for what doctors said was related to his history of migraine headaches.

“That is the first time something like that happened to me,” Gibbs said. “I was real scared.”

Although Gibbs’ main problem was dehydration, doctors said his poor eating habits were a contributing factor.

“I hadn’t been eating well,” Gibbs said. “I’ve been eating fast food all the time; it is kind of hard during basketball to eat right, but I need to make the time.”

Staff writers Brendan Healey, John Ortega, Theresa Munoz, Steve Elling and Mike Hiserman contributed to this notebook.