Bright Lights Lure Parker From CSUN

Tom Parker’s collegiate track career apparently has come to an end.

Parker, who would be a senior, cleared a personal best 17 feet 1 inch in the pole vault at Cal State Northridge last season, but did not attend classes at Northridge last fall and he is not enrolled in classes this spring.

Instead, he is working full-time for a company that manufactures and distributes lights for movie studios and is training with Advantage Athletics Coach Charlie DiMarco.

“I just needed a break from school for a little while,” said Parker, who acknowledges that he is not a model student. “I’m thinking about going back in the fall, but for now, working and training is fine.”

Parker, a 1988 graduate of Notre Dame High, was a full-time student that fall at Tennessee. His collegiate eligibility will run out this season, but he is not alarmed.

“It’s not like I’m all bummed out because I’m not competing (at the collegiate level) this season,” Parker said. “I’m having a good time training and looking forward to the start of the season.”

Parker, 23, will not vault indoors this year, but expects to open the outdoor season next month.

“I’m not going to make any predictions based on height,” he said. “But I think I can raise my (personal record) by quite a bit.”

STANDING-ROOM ONLY

Ventura does not keep attendance records for its home basketball games, but Jerry Dunlap, the athletic director at the school for the past 18 years, estimated that the crowd for last Saturday night’s Western State Conference North Division showdown between the Pirates and Oxnard numbered at least 3,250.

“The capacity of the gym is 3,250 and we were over capacity,” said Dunlap, who said he has attended every Ventura home game for the past 25 years. “I have never seen that big a crowd at our gym.”

People were sitting in the aisles in the stands, sitting on the floor on both ends of the court outside of the end lines, and also standing two or three rows deep in the open-air weight room above the stands on the visitors’ side of the gym.

“That game, more than anything, was good for junior college basketball,” Oxnard Coach Remy McCarthy said. “It was nice to see that kind of support at the junior college level.”

TRUTH BE TOLD

Virgil Watson, an assistant coach in his third season at Ventura, might have best summed up the tension level during Ventura’s 70-68 victory shortly after the Pirates won the game on Stephane Brown’s 18-foot fadeaway jump shot with three seconds left in overtime.

As one Ventura booster boasted in the coaches’ office that he was confident of a Pirate victory throughout the seesaw contest, Watson chuckled, shook his head and said, “You must have been at a different game than I was. My palms were sweating from the second half on.”

CHARITY STRIPE?

Oxnard’s McCarthy had a hard time faulting his team’s effort, but he realized that better free-throw shooting might have been the difference between defeat and victory.

Oxnard, which is shooting an unimpressive 62.2% from the free-throw line, struggled against Ventura. The Condors made only eight of 15 attempts and missed their first five free throws of the second half.

“I don’t think it was due to a lack of concentration,” McCarthy said. “It was just one of those cases when we didn’t drop them in.

“I’ve told the guys in the past that free-throw shooting is a very important part of the game. I’ll bet nine times out of 10 that in games that are decided by five points or less, the team that shoots better from the free-throw line will win.”

In Ventura’s winning effort, it made 17 of 23 attempts from the foul line.

CHANGE OF PLANS

The state junior college men’s basketball final eight tournament, originally set for San Jose State, has been moved to the University of San Francisco’s Memorial Gymnasium.

The tournament is scheduled March 11-13.

Fred Baer, information director for the California Junior College Athletic Bureau, said the tournament was moved because San Jose State couldn’t accommodate the dates after agreeing to play host to the event.

The women’s final eight tournament is scheduled for March 4-6 at Ventura College.

NO MATCH

The potential shootout between Ventura’s Calvin Curry and Moorpark’s Elijah Maxey, the top scorers among WSC players, turned into a one-sided affair when the teams met in a North Division game Wednesday night.

Curry went into the game with a 21.0-point average and Maxey was right behind at 20.9. But when the final buzzer sounded and Ventura had beaten the host Raiders, 75-59, it was a technical knockout for Curry.

Curry finished with a game-high 29 points, all but five coming on three-point baskets. He made his three-pointers from practically every angle.

Maxey, however, had an uncharacteristically sub-par performance. The 6-foot-3 sophomore forward made only one of eight field-goal attempts and even missed his two free-throw attempts. He also shanked two dunk attempts and didn’t score until 1 minute 7 seconds remained in the first half.

To make matters worse, Maxey picked up three fouls in the first half. He got his fourth with 6:11 remaining in the game and Ventura ahead, 64-45. Overall, it was a thoroughly forgettable night.

“He was very frustrated,” Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said.

GREAT STRIDES

Northridge volleyball player Jamal Thompson soared above the net for a solo block, touched down for a split second, then sprang back into the air for a kill that helped put away Brigham Young on Monday.

It was a dramatic example of the strides the former Taft High and Pierce College player has made since last season when he served in a reserve role, giving Northridge a lift with his powerful kills down the middle.

“He’s probably the most improved player on the team,” Coach John Price said. “He has really improved his blocking and he wants the ball on the big points and Matt (Unger) is willing to set the ball to him on the big points. He always had the talent. He decided now that he wants to be good. His potential is scary.”

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Theresa Munoz and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.