All-Star Girls’ Basketball Player to Leave Royal for Simi Valley

Royal High basketball player Tawnee Cooper, an All-Ventura County selection by The Times, will transfer to Simi Valley under the new statewide open enrollment policy.

Cooper, who will be a junior next season, transferred because Simi Valley’s location is more convenient than Royal’s, according to her stepmother, Jeanne Cooper.

Cooper led the county with a 19-point scoring average and pulled down nine rebounds a game.

Basketball

Paula Getty-Shearer, former Royal High girls’ basketball coach who was asked to resign in April after her sixth and finest season there, has been named coach at Louisville High.

Royal was 14-9 last season and advanced to the wild-card round of the Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs. It was the first winning season for Getty-Shearer, but she was asked to resign by school officials after the season for unspecified reasons.

Mike Cole, former coach at Valley View Junior High, will take over at Royal.

Ventura County boys’ and girls’ high school basketball all-star games are scheduled for for Friday night at Ventura High.

The boys’ game will start at 8, and the girls’ contest at 6:30.

Steve Wolf of Rio Mesa and Westlake’s Gary Grayson will coach the boys’ teams. Joe Riccio of Santa Paula and Getty-Shearer will coach the girls’ teams.

The Mission League will have a new look in girls’ basketball next season.

St. Bernard and Bishop Montgomery both recently dropped out of the league and were replaced by Flintridge Sacred Heart, which joins Alemany, Chaminade, Harvard-Westlake, Notre Dame and Louisville.

St. Bernard is located in Playa del Rey, and Bishop Montgomery is in Torrance. St. Bernard won the Division IV state championship the past two seasons.

Football

A Harbor College football player who hit Pierce assistant Pat Swift on the head with a crutch during a brawl after a game between the teams last season has been convicted of battery and sentenced to two years probation.

Dion Lamont Mills, who was convicted by a jury in Compton Superior Court, also was ordered by Judge Victoria Chavez to perform 10 days of community service and fined $500. Prosecutors had pressed for a conviction on assault with a deadly weapon but the jury rejected the higher count.

Swift was knocked unconscious by the blow during the fracas near the locker rooms after the Brahmas defeated Harbor, 23-0, in a Western State Conference game on Sept. 25. He was hospitalized for several days.

Baseball

Mike Mitchell, UCLA first baseman and former Rio Mesa High standout, signed a contract with the New York Yankees and will report to Oneonta, N.Y., of the Class A New York-Penn League next week.

Mitchell, the Yankees’ ninth round draft pick, just completed his junior season with the Bruins.

“They were very generous considering it was the ninth round,” Mitchell said. “I’m looking forward to the chance.”

Bryan Warner, an All-Western State Conference outfielder this season at Glendale College, has signed with the Cleveland Indians, his grandmother, Betty Ackerman said.

Warner was scheduled to leave today for the Indians’ camp in Florida. Warner hit .352 with 11 home runs, 48 runs batted in and 13 doubles for the Vaqueros.

John Davis, an outfielder at College of the Canyons, said he has signed a letter of intent to play at Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston, Idaho.

Davis, from Kennedy High, batted .354 this season in Western State Conference play. Lewis-Clark State is an NAIA Division I school.

Cal Lutheran will conduct a series of baseball camps for youngsters age 7 to 16 from June 20 through Aug. 4.

An overnight session--including meals, dormitory accommodations and use of swimming pool--will run July 31 through Aug. 4. The overnight camp is available to players at least 16.

Registration is $130 for day camp, $295 for overnight camp.

Information: (805) 493-3398.

Miscellany

Notre Dame High has scheduled an alumni golf tournament for June 20 at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana. Registration is $100 with proceeds benefiting the school’s scholarship fund.

Information: (818) 501-2307.