NORTHRIDGE : Wheelchair Hoopsters Have Winning Touch

Meet the hottest team in town: Joaquin Miller High School’s wheelchair basketball team.

So far undefeated, the Miller team travels from school to school throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, playing against students of all ages. The girls at Miller made a cheerleading squad that performs a half-time show at all the games.

Miller High in Reseda is a school for developmentally and physically disabled youth, and severely emotionally disturbed children.

Fourth- and fifth-graders from Lorne Street Elementary in Northridge were selected to saddle up in wheelchairs--without any practice--for a game against Miller on Tuesday at the Lorne campus. Lorne Elementary was crushed, 52 to 20.

“We terminated them!” beamed Russell Mahler, 20, a Miller student who made nine baskets in the game.

“I’ve never been in a wheelchair before,” said 10-year-old Andrea Barrera, not a bit bothered by her team’s loss. “It was really weird to get used to.”

Her teammate, Christopher Hinojosa, 10, said he thinks that wheelchair basketball is “cool” but hard.

“I learned that you shouldn’t make fun of them and they are not weird or stuff like that,” Christopher said.

Miller High was invited to Lorne for the exhibition game as part of the school’s Handicap Awareness Month program, said Melodie Bitter, special education teacher at Lorne who coordinated the game and is giving guest lectures this month.

“I want the kids to know what it’s like to be handicapped so that when they are adults they will be sensitive to them,” Bitter said. “(The Lorne students) are cheering and having a good time and feeling out how (the disabled students) move, and that’s very important.”