THE HIGH SCHOOLS : Inspired by Its Coach, Quartz Hill Endures a Tumultuous Season

Quartz Hill High does not have the best team in the Southern Section Division I-AA boys’ basketball playoffs. That much was obvious Friday night when the Rebels played poorly in a first-round, 37-33 victory over Westminster.

Senior guard Dan Prince, who averages 24 points a game, was held to eight.

“Eight points won’t get the job done,” Prince said.

Perhaps Quartz Hill (16-8) survived because the Rebels are used to coping with adversity. “We’ve had to battle in every game,” Coach Steve Hurst said. “It’s a great group of hard-working, dedicated kids.”

Prince and his teammates would be the first to state that the work ethic comes directly from their coach.

Hurst would say his strength comes from his mentor.

In a season in which Quartz Hill shared the Golden League championship with Ridgecrest Burroughs, Hurst has experienced more ups and downs than a double dribble.

The first-year coach has kept his chin up through a daunting series of personal setbacks and has smiled through exhilarating good fortune.

The past few months have been remarkable, to say the least. The chain of events started in January when Hurst learned that his wife Teresa was pregnant with their first child--and then some.

Teresa underwent a routine sonogram and the couple found much more than they had anticipated.

“The doctor put that thing on her belly and we all expected to see the baby,” Hurst said. “And it looked like a whole litter was in there.”

Exclaimed the doctor: “There’s babies everywhere!”

Three, to be exact. Teresa is in the fifth month of her pregnancy with the triplets, although most people can’t believe it.

“At five months, I look like most women do at nine months,” said Teresa, 27. “I’ve had people ask me when I’m due, because it looks like I could be due any day.”

Matters took a turn for the worse, however. On Jan. 31, Hurst’s father Warren, 66, was taken to a hospital by ambulance shortly before Quartz Hill’s game against Antelope Valley. Teresa said she didn’t have the heart to tell Steve during the game, but she did inform assistant Tom Mahan, who told the players.

Hurst did not find out until after the game that his father had been hospitalized. Hurst’s father has inoperable cancer in his lungs and brain and remains in the Lancaster Community Hospital. Saturday, Quartz Hill practiced in the morning and Hurst, 42, spent the rest of the day at his father’s bedside.

“That’s the way it goes,” said Hurst, who commutes 45 miles one way to the Antelope Valley from California City. “It’s pretty much a daily routine.”

Hurst’ father, now retired, once coached basketball at Desert High near Edwards Air Force Base and is a board member of the Muroc Unified School District. He is well-known in the Mojave Desert area.

“I learned most of what I know from him,” Hurst said. “He got me going in this career.”

Said Prince: “He looks up to his father a lot. He talks about him all the time in practice. His dad is definitely a man’s man.”

Prince also has had an unsettling experience this season. He was hospitalized with chest pains Feb. 4, a few minutes after a Quartz Hill victory over Saugus.

It later was learned that Prince had suffered a muscle cramp in his rib cage. He was cleared to play later in the week.

The Hursts also are trying to sell their California City home so that they can relocate in Lancaster and are doing so without a real estate agent, which is no easy proposition.

Can there be enough hours in the day?

“I’m hanging in there so far,” Hurst said. “It’s been tough. But you’ve got to face it and go on.”

Prince, for one, cannot believe how well the coach has handled the external pressure--during a championship season.

“It’s amazing how he gets through all of it,” Prince said. “But I guess you can’t keep a good man down.”

Stay tuned: The City Section 4-A Division pairings might be altered Monday to prevent a situation arising in which all four league champions in the division face one another Friday in second-round play.

Westchester Coach Ed Azzam and Carson Coach Richard Masson spoke with City administrator Lee Joseph over the weekend about adjusting the pairings.

Joseph said he would consider their recommendations.

“I don’t know if they will (make a change), but we’ll find out Monday,” said Azzam, whose defending 4-A champion team is seeded first.

If the pairings remain as drawn, league champions Taft and Washington will play each other in the second round if they win their openers Wednesday. Ditto for league champions Westchester and Carson.

For the first time, the 4-A pairings were drawn based on the subjective analysis of which team was the most talented, rather than on league standings.

Flipped out: Monday will be a nickel-and-dime day for a handful of area City basketball teams, particularly Reseda. But the stakes will be considerably higher.

Flying coins Monday could decide the playoff fate of the Reseda boys’ and girls’ teams.

The Reseda boys will play host to El Camino Real in a makeup game Monday at 4 p.m. Reseda could earn a share of the West Valley League title with Chatsworth with a victory, and a coin toss then would decide the league’s top-seeded team in the 3-A playoffs.

The Reseda girls finished in a tie for first with Kennedy and El Camino Real at 7-2 in West Valley play. A coin flip will decide the top-seeded entry in the 4-A playoffs. Teams that lose the toss will play Monday or Tuesday to decide which is seeded second and third.

The North Hollywood and Van Nuys girls, who tied for first in the Mid-Valley League at 10-1, also will decide the league’s top-seeded team with a coin toss Monday.

First-round play for City girls’ and boys’ team will begin Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.