2 Stiners Poised to Entertain

Fans who stuck around for both the varsity and junior varsity basketball games between Monroe and Sylmar last week were treated to a double dip of flashy dunks.

In the junior varsity game, Monroe’s Quincy Brooks fed a lob pass to sophomore Shaka Stiner, who completed the alley-oop.

In the varsity game that followed, senior Tweedy Stiner, Shaka’s brother, received a similar pass from LaMarco Rich. Wham. Same play, same result.

“That was the first time they both did it in the same day,” Monroe Coach Paul Graber said.

Soon, perhaps they will have the opportunity to do it in the same game. Shaka Stiner, who is averaging 24 points, is expected to move up to the varsity for the playoffs next week.

UP AND COMING

When twin forwards Paul and Nick Foster graduate this spring, who will fill the middle for next season’s Thousand Oaks basketball team?

In the wings is Paul Brandt, a 6-foot-10, 200-pound junior who has spent most of the season on the bench, learning from the Fosters, who stand 6-7 and 6-8.

Brandt got into the action recently as the Lancers (23-1), who rolled to a 14-0 Marmonte League record, played out the regular season. He has scored 21 points in nine games. But the best is yet to come, Lancer Coach Ed Chevalier said.

“I think as a senior, he’s really going to be a great player,” Chevalier said. “He’s agile, mobile and hostile . . . but not as hostile as he needs to be yet.”

JUST DO IT, EDDIE

Once Verdugo Hills got into the driver’s seat against Franklin last week, Dons Coach Scott Kemple knew exactly what to do.

Trailing, 53-50, Verdugo Hills junior Dave Bryant hit a three-point basket with 30 seconds left to tie the score. Seconds later Franklin turned the ball over, and Kemple called a timeout.

“I still remember what I said to them,” Kemple said. “I said, ‘Play for the last shot. Get the ball to Eddie (Powell). Eddie, just do whatever comes naturally.’ ”

Powell, who is averaging 28.4 points a game, drove toward the basket, was fouled, and went to the free-throw line with 0.7 seconds remaining.

Powell made the front end of the one-and-one and Verdugo Hills (6-12, 6-6) held on to upset first-place Franklin (14-7, 10-2), 54-53.

Simple.

CHINA GIRL

What would be a bigger thrill--winning a Southern Section soccer championship or hanging out in China with the United States’ winning women’s World Cup team?

“Winning (Southern Section) would be terrific, just to be the best,” Royal High sophomore soccer player Kelly Adamson said. “But China was something else. It was two different stories.”

Adamson knows the latter story, thanks to her father, Richard.

Richard is an independent television producer and, because of his daughter’s love for the sport, an avid women’s soccer fan.

In August of 1991, Richard and Kelly saw a U.S. women’s national team exhibition match at Santa Barbara, three months before the first women’s World Cup was to be played in China.

On an impulse, Richard contacted FIFA, the world’s governing soccer body, and found that no one in the United States had purchased the broadcast rights for the 12-team tournament.

Richard purchased the rights in early September and flew to China with Kelly in November to broadcast the event. The U.S. women won in an upset, defeating Norway, 2-1.

“All the networks told me later that if they thought the U.S. was going to win it, they would have broadcast it,” he said.

Adamson combined the event coverage, player interviews and behind-the-scenes footage into an hour-long show hosted by Merlin Olsen.

ESPN might eventually air the program, but Adamson currently plans to market a videotape of the program.

Kelly practiced with the players, even riding on the team bus. She has a picture of herself next to the World Cup trophy with team member Julie Foudy and famed Brazilian men’s soccer star Pele.

BEATEN . . . UP

J.W. Hobson, Harvard-Westlake’s leading scorer with a 18.8 average, will always remember his final high school basketball game, but not for reasons he’d like.

Hobson, a senior, played Feb. 5 in an 86-72 loss to Alemany. In the second quarter, an elbow to the head opened a cut. He was bandaged at halftime, then returned to the game in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter of what would become Harvard’s seventh consecutive loss, his legs became entangled with those of an Alemany player who was attempting a layup. Hobson suffered an ankle sprain.

He could barely walk after the game but went to the hospital to get stitches in his head. The ankle injury kept him out of the Wolverines’ final two games.

Hobson was disappointed that his season, which also was interrupted by a three-week bout with mononucleosis, ended as it did, but he didn’t blame the Alemany players.

“It was a physical game,” he said, “and I like games like that.”

NONAGGRESSION

Royal High soccer player Jen Evans is a first-degree black belt in taekwondo, having taken up the martial art after seeing the movie “The Karate Kid” when she was 8.

“There was a time in her life when if things didn’t go her way or she had a conflict with a girl on the other team, she wanted to fight,” Royal Coach Monte Berna said about the senior forward. “That was her answer.”

But Evans’ answer has changed over the past two seasons.

She learned to control her temper and channel her emotions, partly, she says, because of her discipline from taekwondo.

“I try not to lose my temper and my patience, just to stay calm and ignore anything that’s bothering me,” Evans said. “I think that’s because of karate.”

The improvement has helped in her soccer play.

She set a school record this season with 30 goals and has led Royal to a playoff berth and a No. 9 ranking in Southern Section Division I.

What’s more, she has been contacted by soccer coaches at Pepperdine, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Chico to play for them next season.

INJURY WOES

Stacey Auer of Thousand Oaks, one of the main contributors to the Lancers’ first Southern Section 3-A Division girls’ track title last year, will not race during the first part of this season and might not run at all because of a stress fracture in her right foot.

The injury, which put an end to Auer’s senior cross-country campaign last October, has been slow to heal.

Auer wore a hard cast on her foot from early October to mid-November, then spent another six weeks in a removable cast and has been jogging short distances for the last month.

“Right now, my goal is to be healthy for next cross-country season. If I get in decent shape before the end of track season, I’ll try racing, but right now, I’d say there’s only a 50-50 chance of that happening,” she said.

Auer placed third in both the 1,600 and 3,200 meters at last year’s 3-A championships and has personal bests of 5:00.70 in the former event and 10:38.63 in the latter.

The mark in the 3,200 ranked Auer sixth on the national high school list in 1991 and makes her a prized college recruit.

She has made recruiting trips to Auburn, Northern Arizona and Iowa State, and has a trip scheduled to Arkansas this weekend.

Kennedy Cosgrove and staff writers Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick, Paige A. Leech and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.