Sylmar Wears Victory Well in New Jerseys

A new look led to a new outcome for the Sylmar High basketball team last week in a Valley Pac-8 Conference game against Canoga Park.

The Spartans took the court in new jerseys bought by the players, but the garments normally pass for practice jerseys.

“We hadn’t won a game, so we wanted to change something and we decided to change our jerseys. . . . and it worked--we won,” Coach Alan Shaw said, referring to the 52-51 win over Canoga Park.

Some of the Spartans (1-5, 1-3) had complained that the school-issue game jerseys were tight and uncomfortable, so the team elected to buy replacements. Each of the 11 team members bought a reversible jersey and one pair of shorts for $30. Some players even practice in the jersey.

“They love ‘em,” Shaw said. “They are really proud of them, and they are much more comfortable.”

The jerseys, which are dark blue on one side and white on the other, are numbered only on the back--a rules violation--so Shaw is scrambling to get the jerseys numbered on the front before the team receives a technical foul.

WRESTLING

Those thuds coming from the Channel Islands wrestling room Wednesday night were the sounds of the Raiders landing flat on their backs.

Ventura thrashed defending Marmonte League champion Channel Islands, 46-11, recording five pins and victories in 11 of 13 weight divisions in the nonleague dual meet.

An upset? Not when considering Ventura’s strength. The Cougars were ranked second in the preseason Southern Section 3-A Division poll.

Yet no one could have expected such a one-sided outcome. Channel Islands, a perennial Ventura County power, is ranked sixth among 4-A teams and entered the meet with a 15-2 record. Moreover, the Raiders were 38-3 in dual meets dating to last season.

“The stands were packed and people were expecting a much closer match,” Ventura Coach Paul Clementi said. “We showed a lot of people just how tough we are against a solid team.”

Ventura (11-1) has five undefeated wrestlers: John Jiminez (125 pounds), 15-0; Jason Carmody (140), 14-0-1; Matt Jones (145), 15-0; Justin Jackson (152), 15-0; and Scott Adams (189), 1-0.

Adams, the defending Southern Section 189-pound champion, joined the team this week after recovering from injuries suffered during football season.

UNTIMELY CALL

Loyola guard Kenny Simpson’s last-second, half-court basket beat Glendale, 65-63, Saturday in the fifth-place game of the Beverly Hills tournament.

But did it beat the buzzer?

The officials said yes. But it appeared to many--including Loyola Coach Bill Thomason--that Simpson still was fumbling with the ball when the buzzer sounded.

“That’s (expletive),” Thomason said, offering an extended hand to Glendale Coach Bob Davidson.

Davidson had nothing to say and no one to say it to, anyway.

“Even the timekeeper came up to me and said it was late,” Davidson said. “The referee who called that a three-point shot even ran off. I couldn’t find him after the game to argue with him.”

IN MEMORY

For the second consecutive season, Glendale players are wearing a black shoulder band on their jerseys in honor of former player Damian Lord, who died in October, 1990, after an 18-month battle with leg cancer.

Lord, who played for Glendale’s freshman team before becoming ill, would have been a senior this season.

“These seniors played with him,” Davidson said. “So, they were all really close to him. They wanted to wear it.”

FINALLY

After 27 consecutive losses, including an 0-20 performance last season, Oak Park broke through with a 53-50 nonleague win over Village Christian. The victory did not go unnoticed.

“Everyone is talking about it,” Oak Park Coach Rob Hall said. “We needed to break it and we needed to break it early in the season. And we wanted to get it in front of our home gym.”

Multiple missions accomplished.

SLOW IT DOWN

Last year’s Quartz Hill basketball team was known for running and gunning and running some more. The team sprinted to a Golden League title and won the first playoff game in school history.

But when first-year Coach Steve Hurst took over from retiring veteran Don Moore this year, Hurst immediately applied the brakes to the running game. By way of example, Quartz Hill nearly upset Santa Clara last week before falling, 42-41. A 42-41 count from last year’s team was more like a halftime score.

“Last year we had some running and jumping athletes,” Hurst said. “Heck, no, we don’t want that score up there. We want to play tough man-to-man defense and keep the score as low as we can keep it.”

A 5-3 start for Quartz Hill shows that this new face might suit the Rebels, after all.

PRESSURE DROP

He won the Southern Section Division II title in cross-country, finished second in the state Division II meet and third in the Kinney West regional, yet Ryan Wilson of Agoura might have been overwhelmed by the pressure of the Kinney national championships at San Diego’s Morley Field on Saturday.

Wilson, regarded as one of 10 potential winners in the boys’ race, never got untracked and finished 28th in the 32-runner field with a time of 16 minutes 20.7 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. Corey Ihmels of Williston, N. D., won in 15:03.6.

“I think the pressure just got to him,” Agoura Coach Bill Duley said. “He said he had trouble eating breakfast and he never felt smooth out there. He said he kind of felt short of breath from the very start.”

Luckily for Wilson, he is a junior and will have an opportunity to redeem himself next year.

REALITY CHECK

Although Grant (4-1, 3-1) is the defending East Valley League basketball champion, members of the Sherman Oaks CES team were surprised by their 69-56 league loss to Grant last week.

Knight Coach Mac Becker said that some team members were fully expecting to be undefeated league champions.

“Some of the kids thought we were gonna go 11-0,” he said. “They thought they were that good. At this age, the world is their oyster, I guess.

But I’d rather them think that we can beat everybody than lose to everybody.”

Vince Kowalick and staff writers Steve Elling, Paige A. Leech, Brian Murphy and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.