All Over but Shouting for De La Hoya : Olympic boxoffs: He beats Brooks easily to make U.S. team. Glendale’s Reilly joins him.

Little Ceci De La Hoya didn’t quite understand. Her big brother, Oscar, had made the U.S. Olympic boxing team, but the big, boisterous De La Hoya contingent of family and friends was shouting and cheering so loudly, she apparently figured something bad had happened.

So Ceci, 9, burst into tears as she saw her brother seated at a table, speaking into a microphone to reporters. It must have seemed to her as if he was facing some sort of inquisition.

De La Hoya’s father, Joel, picked up Ceci, comforted her and told her the good news.

“She will be very happy later. Right now she’s confused,” Joel explained.

By today, Ceci will have figured out that her brother, an East Los Angeles lightweight, landed on the U.S. Olympic boxing team and that he is going to a place called Barcelona.

De La Hoya made it with ease Saturday at the Olympic team boxoffs, in stifling afternoon heat in a tent in Phoenix.

Another Southland boxer, welterweight Pepe Reilly of Glendale, barely made it. De La Hoya routed his opponent at The Pointe at South Mountain, 50-16, but Reilly nearly blew a big lead and had to hold on to win, 39-35.

Those two joined four others Saturday in clinching berths on the Olympic team: World champion light-flyweight Eric Griffin of Broussard, La., flyweight Tim Austin of Cincinnati, bantamweight Sergio Reyes of the Marines and featherweight Julian Wheeler of the Navy.

De La Hoya swarmed all over his opponent, Patrice Brooks of St. Louis, and dominated him, beginning with a straight right hand that knocked Brooks back on his heels in the opening seconds.

The 19-year-old Garfield High graduate had computer scoring leads of 15-6 and 26-13 after two rounds, then finished in whirlwind fashion.

Reilly, a 20-year-old out of Glendale Hoover High, also had a comfortable lead after two rounds over Jesse Briseno of Kalamazoo, Mich. But Reilly seemed to wilt slightly more than Briseno in the heat in a fast-paced third round.

Reilly was ahead, 28-13, after two rounds, but was outscored, 22-11, during the third. The announcement of the score, 39-35, drew boos from some of the 2,000 or so in attendance. Some Briseno family members broke through ringside security, looking for judges.

When the session began, at 11:30 a.m., the temperature inside the air-conditioned tent was 91 degrees, but the ring, under television lights, was much hotter.

A third Southern California boxer will make the Olympic team this afternoon when Studio City light-heavyweight Montell Griffin fights Jeremy Williams of Long Beach in the only rubber match resulting from the boxoffs.

Challengers must have defeated trials tournament champions twice this weekend to make the team, and Griffin--who needed a lawyer to get in the boxoffs--was the only challenger to win here.

De La Hoya had the largest rooting section, and his family and friends turned the post-fight news conference into a cheering, chanting celebration.

De La Hoya was aggressive with Brooks, in contrast to the careful, measured pace he employed at at the Olympic trials tournament in Worcester, Mass., two weeks ago.

“I knew Patrice would come after me because he had nothing to lose,” De La Hoya said. “So I caught him early with some right-hand leads, and he wasn’t expecting that.

“I’m the best 132-pounder in the world, and I’m going to bring the gold back from Barcelona.”

At that, his partisans erupted into more cheers . . . until a USA Boxing official asked for quiet.

De La Hoya thanked his father, his trainer, Robert Alcazar, and pledged anew to dedicate an Olympic gold medal to his mother, Cecilia, who died of cancer in 1990.

De La Hoya and Reilly said the heat sapped their strength to some extent, but Reilly said a low blow by Briseno also slowed him during the third round. The way Reilly was going in the final minute, he might have lost if the bout had lasted another 20 seconds.

“Jesse hit me low and the referee didn’t see it, and it gave me a cramp for a while,” Reilly said.

Reilly, plagued at Worcester by soft first rounds, came out firing. The judges gave him an 11-2 edge for the first, which Reilly finished with two thumping left hooks.

Both boxers seemed exhausted during the third, but Briseno--who lost to Reilly, 34-27, at the trials final--seemed to catch a second wind during the last half of the round. He rocked Reilly with a left, then scored with a combination and finished the round off with four scoring blows.

One ringsider, heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, predicted gold medals for De La Hoya, light-middleweight Raul Marquez, light-welterweight Vernon Forrest, light-flyweight Eric Griffin and bantamweight Sergio Reyes.

Light-flyweight Griffin, probably the best bet for a U.S. gold medal, defeated his challenger, Bradley Martinez of the U.S. Army, 70-14.

If there was an upset Saturday, it was probably trials champion Julian Wheeler of the Navy, again defeating Ivan Robinson of Philadelphia, 27-25. Wheelerbeat him at the trials final, 35-20. A year ago, Robinson had appeared certain to make the Olympic team.