Shiota Rebuilds Wilson on Fly

Nothing has worked quite the way Wayne Shiota, the Los Angeles Wilson High baseball coach, thought it would.

He figured he was facing a rebuilding season. He didn’t figure on rain.

Now his team is 5-0, in first place in the City Section’s Northeast League, and his biggest problem is getting a dry day to get in a game, let alone a practice.

“I know that the weather has bothered everybody, but we’ve only had two good practices in the last couple of weeks since the rain came.”

City teams have had a particular problem making up games because of the limited number of available playing sites. Wilson was scheduled to play Hollywood Monday in a makeup game, but the game was postponed because the Shieks had to play a makeup of a previous makeup game.

“The makeup games are stacked up a while back,” said Shiota, whose team will play Marshall today and Thursday. “We want to play our makeup games, but teams have to play games that were postponed from early last month.”

One thing rain has not done this season is put a damper on Wilson’s fast start. After finishing 12-5 a year ago, Wilson lost several starters, but this season’s junior-dominated team has given the Mules a two-game lead over Franklin and Eagle Rock in the Northeast League.

Leading the way are junior pitcher Chris Romero, who is 3-0 and has not given up an earned run, and junior third baseman Isreal Estrada.

“Yes, I’m surprised with our start,” Shiota said. “We’ve had a lot of luck. Our defense has been good, our pitching has been solid and we’ve been able to score enough runs. But, we’ve basically been lucky.”

It has been more than luck. Last Thursday, Wilson trailed Belmont, 2-1, with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning when Estrada tied the score with a single. The Mules won the game in the eighth inning.

One of the teams chasing Wilson is Franklin, the 1989 City 3-A Division champion. The Panthers, who are led by senior first baseman Andy Aguilar, have a 3-2 conference record, but have not been consistent.

“We are a lot better than we’ve been playing,” Franklin Coach Richard Campbell said. “We are young and inexperienced with a lot of 10th graders. But once we get it together, I don’t think that anyone can play with us.”

Because of the rain, Franklin has played only two games in the past two weeks and has not practiced once. This week, Franklin is scheduled to play four games in order to make up postponed games.

The City Section revamped its oft-criticized football playoff structure Monday, promoting 12 teams to the 4-A Division to establish two more evenly balanced brackets for the fall season.

The Interscholastic Athletics Committee, governing body for City sports, voted, 16-5, to adopt the new structure, rejecting a proposal that called for placing the section’s 49 schools in one division.

The vote followed a report from Brad Ratcliff, president of the Los Angeles Coaches Assn. According to Ratcliff, University High football coach, 32 of 46 coaches backed the proposal with three coaches not responding.

The plan establishes a 24-team 4-A Division and a 25-team 3-A Division, each division consisting of six leagues.

The plan, which will be reviewed after its first season, is patterned after a proposal by Monroe Coach Dave Lertzman, who designed the current City conference structure three years ago. Next fall, each of the six eight-team conferences (the Southeastern Conference has nine teams) will consist of one 4-A league and one 3-A league. The four conference teams with the best conference record based on last year will form the 4-A league with the other four teams in the 3-A league.

Prep Notes

Some of Southern California’s top boys’ and girls’ senior basketball players will be showcased in the seventh College Prep Basketball Classic at the Forum April 11, when all-star teams from the City and Southern sections meet. The doubleheader will begin at noon with the girls’ game, followed by the boys at 2:30.

The City boys’ team, which has won five of six games against the Southern Section, will be coached by Fremont’s Sam Sullivan, whose team was City 3-A champion.

Players expected to represent the City are: LeRoi O’Brien of Westchester, Kevin Ollie of Crenshaw, Jabari Anderson of Wilmington Banning, Dimitri Rideout of Narbonne, Robin Kirksey of Gardena, Kevin Collins of Reseda Cleveland, Jerry Allen of Granada Hills, Kevin Beal and Dwain Bradberry of Manual Arts, Lamar Smith, Kevin Griffis and Barnabas James of Washington and Chris Ford, Robert Moore and Michael Tate of Fremont.

The Southern Section will be coached by Santa Barbara’s Bob Purdy, whose team was the Southern Section 1-A champion.

Southern Section selections are Daryll Bryant and Rodney Harris of Long Beach Jordan, Pat Thacker and Jamie Davis of Long Beach Millikan, Tyus Edney of Long Beach Jordan, David Beilstein of Tustin, Ray Owes of Santa Barbara, David Harbour of Camarillo, Phillip Turner of Pasadena Muir, Chris Loll of Thousand Oaks, Chris Davis of Mira Costa, Roger Hendrix of Rolling Hills, Wyking Jones of Playa del Rey St. Bernard, Eric Brown of Workman, Elzie Love of Perris, Matt Purdy of Santa Barbara, John Molle of Irvine and Mustapha Abdi of Huntington Beach.

The City girls’ team will be coached by Lorenzo Garcia of Roosevelt, which won its first City 3-A title this season.

Heading the 16-player team will be Jacinda Sweet of North Hollywood, Tyeasha Tolliver of Fremont, Amanda Daniels of Venice, Tara Walker of Marshall and Rosa Mendez, Angie Quesada and Lucinda Silva of Roosevelt.

The Southern Section girls’ team will be coached by Wendell Yoshida, whose Palos Verdes team won the State Division II title.

Playing on the Southern Section team, which has won five of the six meetings, will be Princess Murray and Akiba Flanagan of Inglewood Morningside, Melissa Gower and Charon Johnson of Lakewood, Kim Barfield of Lynwood, Jinelle Williams of Brea-Olinda, Nickie Manzo of Lompoc and Tamika Phillips of Chaffey.