L.A. WATTS SUMMER GAMES : Basketball Tournament Includes 128 Boys’ Teams : Preview: Tenth-seeded North Hollywood leads area entrants. Nine sports will begin play throughout Los Angeles.

Sophomore Jeremy Fischer of Camarillo High concluded a superb track season by tying for fourth place in the boys’ high jump in the state championships two weeks ago.

Today, he will begin his quest to make a name for himself in basketball when the Scorpions play El Segundo in a first-round game of the L. A. Watts Summer Games at Dorsey High.

A point guard on the junior varsity team as a sophomore, Fischer (5-foot-10) blossomed as a high jumper during the spring. He raised his personal best from 6-4 to 6-11 1/2, and won the Marmonte League and Southern Section 3-A Division titles.

“We’re expecting big things of Jeremy this season,” Camarillo basketball Coach Mike Prewitt said. “We’re going to ask a lot of him, but I think he’s capable of delivering. He’s just a great kid who is very coachable.”

Camarillo (3-20, 1-13 in league play) is one of 128 teams competing in the boys’ basketball tournament.

Westchester and Fremont, the two-time defending City Section 4-A and 3-A Division champions, are among the leading entrants.

Lynwood, runner-up in the Southern Section Division I-AA championships, and Division III-AA champion Morningside are the No. 1- and 2-seeded teams in the tournament.

North Hollywood, the No. 10-seeded team, leads entries from the region.

Taft (24th) and Chatsworth (28th) are also among the 32 seeded teams.

The games, which began with swimming and diving competition last Saturday, will kick into overdrive today with preliminary competition in nine sports throughout the Los Angeles area.

Canyon will defend its title in the 51-team, seven-on-seven football tournament. The Cowboys, who defeated Beverly Hills in the title game last year, could play Santa Clarita Valley rival Hart in a second-round game at Compton College today at 3:30 p.m. Canyon has a first-round bye. Hart will play Pomona at 11:30 a.m.

Buena, runner-up to Thousand Oaks in the last two Southern Section Division I-A girls’ basketball championships, is among 80 teams participating in that sport.

The girls’ volleyball tournament will conduct pool play and championship matches today with boys’ volleyball doing the same Sunday.

Harvard-Westlake, the defending Southern Section 3-A Division champion, leads local entries in the 24-team water polo tournament.

Finals in 12 other sports will be held next weekend.

The games were instituted in 1968--three years after the Watts riots--in an effort to promote understanding among high school athletes from around the Southland. The games have taken on special significance this year in the wake of the riots that followed the not-guilty verdicts of four police officers in the Rodney G. King beating trial in Simi Valley.

Teams from Royal will not compete in this year’s games because administrators at the school believed that participating would place the schools’ coaches, athletes and their parents at risk.

Simi Valley will not send any teams, either, although school Principal Dave Ellis said that its non-participation has nothing to do with the riots.