Soccer Teams See Schedule Wash Away

Recent rainstorms have played havoc with area soccer teams’ schedules, causing postponement of most matches last week and threatening more postponements this week. Teams cited the need to preserve playing fields as the reason for the postponements.

“You don’t want to ruin the fields completely,” Oak Park High boys’ Coach Rick Torres said. “If you chew (the field) up and then it dries like that, you’ve got a lot of work.”

Poor drainage has left some fields simply unplayable, including Royal’s football field, where the Highlanders practice, and Agoura’s field--although it was rebuilt this summer.

“When they built this field, they didn’t build the drains correctly,” Agoura boys’ Coach Bart Morefield said. “There’s standing water on a brand-new field, which is ridiculous.”

Almost every team’s schedule is being complicated by the postponements and teams are bracing for the likelihood of having to play four matches in a single week later this season to compensate.

Buena and Hueneme, unable to play as scheduled Monday at Hueneme because the field was swamped, switched the match site to Oxnard rather than reschedule, but this solution is the exception rather than the rule.

TAKEN DOWN

The El Camino Real wrestling team has seen better times.

The Conquistadores, defending City Section champions and winners of five City titles in the past seven years, are off to a 4-10-2 start.

Compounding matters, many on this year’s squad simply don’t seem interested in wrestling, Coach Terry Fischer said.

El Camino Real is scheduled to compete Saturday in the 16-team Alemany Invitational. However, several team members who departed on a skiing vacation to Wyoming during the City’s eight-week semester break have yet to return.

And Fischer isn’t sure he wants them back.

“They’d rather be on vacation,” Fischer said. “If they’re gone, that’s good riddance. Things may be better off. I’ve got plenty of guys who can take their place.”

However, there are bright spots. Sophomore Hugo Jordan (152 pounds) is 15-3 after finishing first in a meet Saturday at Simi Valley. Eduardo Nochez (140), who finished second in the Valley League and third in the City finals last season, is 8-5.

NO MEMORY LAPSE

Two weeks of reflection have not helped Buena girls’ basketball Coach Joe Vaughan forget the Bulldogs’ two losses in New York at the Eastern Invitational Tournament of Champions. “They’ll be up in my throat for a while,” Vaughan said.

Buena lost the first game, 48-47, to St. Peter’s of New York, “in the final five-tenths of a second,” Vaughan said, and then fell in the next round, 58-56, to Linden, N.J., on a shot with 10 seconds left. A 68-30 victory over Providence Day, N.C., gave the Bulldogs seventh place in the eight-team tournament.

“We had a great experience on the trip, but those were two gut-wrenching losses,” Vaughan added. “Hopefully, we learned something from it.”

NEW REPERTOIRE

Campbell Hall center Alex Lopez, a 6-foot-10 junior who has been starting since his freshman season, has added some new tricks to his bag of offensive moves.

Lopez, who stood 6-9 in junior high, seems to be growing more comfortable with his size and is learning how to use his height advantage.

In last week’s game against rival Crossroads, Lopez scored on a straightaway jump shot, baseline turnaround, fast break, reverse layup and a dunk. His drop-step move in the low post isn’t bad, either.

“I think it’s mainly a matter of confidence,” Coach Jon Palarz said.

Lopez, 16, is averaging 13.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and a region-best 4.9 blocked shots. Last season, Lopez averaged 12.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.1 blocks.

“His stats are pretty close to where they were last year,” assistant Joe Sciuto said. “But now he’s doing different things on the floor. I think he’s maturing and growing into that body.”

Kennedy Cosgrove, David Coulson and staff writers Steve Elling and Vince Kowalick contributed to this notebook.