Without Toss, Angry Coach Just Flips Out

Howard Davis didn’t get to call it in the air.

But that’s not all the Hueneme coach is miffed about in the wake of the Vikings’ 54-52 Southern Section I-A Division playoff loss to Ayala on Wednesday night. He’s angry over everything regarding how section officials corrected the embarrassing mistake of placing Ayala in the wrong playoff bracket.

On Monday, section officials hurriedly amended the error by pitting Ayala--a 56-50 Division II-A first-round winner over La Serna--against Hueneme in a I-A first-round “makeup” game. By virtue of a coin flip, Ayala was scheduled to be the host team.

Hueneme had defeated Antelope Valley in a first-round game, setting up a second-round game against Thousand Oaks. Moreover, Hueneme had won the right to play Thousand Oaks at home by virtue of a coin flip.

And Davis had driven from his home in Oxnard to the Southern Section office in Cerritos last Saturday to make the call on the Hueneme-Thousand Oaks coin flip himself.

However, he says he was never given the chance to do the same on Monday.

“We didn’t even know,” he said. “We were completely out of the loop.”

Finally, Davis claimed, Hueneme should have been awarded the home game by virtue of its second-place finish in the Channel League. Ayala finished third in the Sierra League.

“Let’s just say that the (Southern Section) is not the most trustworthy (organization) in my eyes,” Davis said. “I’d like to be there any time anything is being done by those people.”

WRITING ON THE WALL

Burroughs last week was no match for the Dean of state basketball players. In this case, Michael Dean of Torrance.

Dean, a guard who leads all state boys’ players with an average of 32.9 points, had 47 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists as Torrance defeated Burroughs, 83-70, in a first-round Division II-AA playoff game. What’s more, Dean proved his mettle to the crowd at Burroughs.

Dean was a roommate of Burroughs scoring leader Gabe Colon last summer at the Superstars camp in Santa Barbara. A poster was placed on the wall before the game that read, “Mike Dean and Gabe Colon--One on One.”

“They were checking off our points whenever we scored, and by halftime they stopped marking my points,” Dean said, laughing.

Colon finished with nine points. Dean scored 18 points in the third quarter to help blow open the game for Torrance, which held a 40-37 halftime lead.

SALT IN THE WOUND

Bad enough that El Camino Real High’s basketball team was removed from the City Section 3-A Division playoffs after the postseason pairings already had been issued.

Bad enough that when coaches subjectively seeded the four at-large teams in the field, El Camino Real (13-9) was rated fourth and lowly Narbonne (2-8 in league play) was rated second.

Some disagree with the coaches’ assessment of El Camino Real, which has four players with double-digit scoring averages.

Broadcaster Pete Arbogast of KNX Newsradio sports, a Marshall graduate, has followed City athletics for years and periodically issues his own basketball rankings in the 3-A. Arbogast’s final regular season rankings place El Camino Real fifth among the 26 schools in the division, behind only Monroe, San Fernando, Reseda and Birmingham.

Other at-large tournament entries rated below El Camino Real were Canoga Park (ranked 12th by Arbogast), Bell (14th) and Narbonne (16th). Verdugo Hills, ranked 18th by Arbogast, was entered in the tournament in place of El Camino Real.

El Camino Real’s scheduled first-round game with Monroe was expected to be very competitive, since both teams feature lineups of comparable size, speed and talent.

Said El Camino Real Coach Neils Ludlow: “I think we had a good chance (against Monroe). We matched up very well.”

Monroe defeated Verdugo Hills on Wednesday, 77-66.

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

Madonna. Geena Davis. Neezer Tarleton?

The name of Tarleton, the Notre Dame girls’ soccer coach, won’t appear on the videotape box cover of the movie, “A League of Their Own,” with Madonna and Davis.

But Tarleton was one of their teammates on the silver screen.

Through good fortune and plain stubbornness, Tarleton wangled the part of a Rockford (Ill.) Peach, a teammate of Davis and Madonna and a player for manager Tom Hanks.

The filming took place from July to November, 1991, which meant that Tarleton had to miss coaching the junior varsity team last season, but she returned this season and took over the varsity job. The Knights finished 6-12-5.

Tarleton, 29, moved to California in 1987 from Ridgewood, N.J., “solely to get a career as a stuntwoman,” she said, but couldn’t get her foot in the Hollywood door until “League of Their Own.”

However, Tarleton did not get a role in the initial tryouts for “League,” held at USC in 1990. When she found out in June 1991 that the movie was about to be filmed in Chicago, she flew there on the spur of the moment.

“I figured, ‘I’m not going to get a better shot than this,’ ” she said. “ ‘If I don’t do this, I’m never going to forgive myself.’ ”

With her credit card “maxed out” because of the plane-ticket purchase, only a tenuous plan to stay at the apartment of her brother’s friend, and no real way to return to L.A. if her plan failed, Tarleton arrived at the filming location still carrying her luggage.

Director Penny Marshall liked Tarleton, gave her a role the next day, and the novice thespian eventually had six lines of dialogue.

Those lines ended up on the cutting-room floor, but because they were filmed Tarleton qualified for her Screen Actors Guild card, which has led to some stunt work, most recently a month ago for the movie, “Tucker and Flynn.”

“That and coaching is all I want to do,” she said.

BOILING POINT

Chaminade girls’ soccer Coach Jeff Blumkin thought that the Eagles’ first-round playoff match last Friday was out of control--and not only because his team lost to top-ranked Arcadia, 3-0.

Blumkin, upset because he believed the referee had lost control of the match, reached his boiling point late in the second half when Eagle Megan Cassidy was elbowed and knocked to the ground with a cut lip. The referee did not stop play, and Blumkin had seen enough. He stepped onto the field while play continued to help his player and yell at the referee.

The referee immediately gave Blumkin a yellow card for the violation and the two men engaged in a shouting match before Blumkin was ejected from the match.

Blumkin said he plans to file a complaint with the Southern Section office.

“I think refs need to be made aware of what’s going on and what they’re not handling correctly,” he said. “My feeling as a coach is that if it’s getting out of hand, it’s your responsibility to keep players under control.”

HEAD OF THE CLASS

UC Santa Barbara women’s basketball Coach Mark French can hardly wait for next season, and one of the main reasons is a recruiting class that includes Palmdale guard Kim Schielke. The Gauchos have secured one of the top recruiting groups in the country, according to many observers, and French thinks the key to the class is Schielke, a Times All-Valley player.

“Kim is probably the most talented all-around offensive player we’ve ever signed,” French said. “She really does everything well. I can hardly wait to let her loose on the break, where she will be able to showcase her fabulous offensive skills.”

In addition to Schielke, UCSB has signed Santa Ynez point guard Erin Alexander and 6-3 center Amy Smith of Sacramento Bella Vista.

“You always have to judge recruits by potential,” French said. “In terms of how we touted them and who we beat for them, this is the most talented group we’ve ever signed.”

Kennedy Cosgrove, David Coulson and staff writer Steve Elling contributed to this notebook.