Struggling Hart Still Has Posey--and Pride

Senior guard Mike Posey won’t deny he misses the glory days. He is the lone returner from a Hart High boys’ basketball team that finished 20-2 a year ago but has struggled to 13-12 this season and is fighting to get into the playoffs.

“We just go out and play as hard as we can,” said Posey, who averages 12.6 points and five assists a game. “If we lose, we lose. We realize we’re not as big or as physical as other teams.”

But Posey thinks the Indians could win one or two games in the playoffs. He might be right. They blew out league champion Burbank (15-8, 9-2 in league play) on Tuesday, 54-40. What motivated Hart, the three-time defending champion?

“Big-time pride,” Posey said.

*

Tube tips: Lee Martin might have been known best as the father of Stephanie Martin, who played at Rio Mesa High and recently qualified for the LPGA Tour.

No more.

Martin, the head pro at Saticoy Country Club in Somis, soon will be a minor television celebrity. Beginning Thursday, Martin will give weekly golf tips that will be televised on KADY, a television station based in Oxnard that is carried by several cable systems from Paso Robles to Malibu.

Martin, who has instructed pros such as former UCLA and Taft High standout Duffy Waldorf, will focus on the swing basics. The tips will be aired Thursdays during KADY’s 6 p.m. newscast.

*

No respect: Eric Gillespie, Robert Fick and Andy Shaw each homered for Cal State Northridge in last Friday’s 10-4 victory over Loyola Marymount, but the buzz didn’t last long.

After the game, the trio drove to Glendale to watch a junior college game at Stengel Field, where they were pointedly warned by the plate umpire to stop criticizing his calls.

“Each one of them homers, then gets barked at by a JC umpire,” said P.C. Shaw, a Glendale College assistant and Andy’s older brother. “Now that’s no respect.”

*

Valuable man: With averages of 7.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, Colin Lubsey has not posted great statistics for The Master’s College this season, but his value has not been lost on Coach Bill Oates.

The addition of the 6-foot-5 senior--who did not play until January because he had only one semester of collegiate eligibility remaining--has given Master’s (21-4) a talented eight-man rotation.

“He gives us another experienced player and that can only help our depth,” Oates said.

*

Throwaways: Available free at every Ventura College home basketball game are large orange cards that have the No. 3 printed in black on one side and dunk on the other. Fans hold up the appropriate side after a Pirate player makes a three-point shot or a dunk.

Both are common occurrences for undefeated Ventura (29-0), ranked No. 1 in the state. But in Wednesday’s 85-80 overtime victory over Moorpark, most fans were caught sitting on their cards. Not much use for them. No Ventura player dunked and by the time Shannon Taylor nailed a key three-pointer in the final seconds of regulation, most orange cards were decorating the floor beneath the bleachers.

Quotebook

Oxnard College men’s basketball Coach Ron McClurkin, on the large and raucous Ventura contingent at last Saturday’s game between the schools at Oxnard: “We lost the game but we took their money.”

Ventura defeated the Condors, 78-72.

Nordhoff High cross-country and track Coach Ken Reeves, describing his fatigue during the last five miles of Saturday’s Las Vegas Marathon: “I’ll tell you this, Elvis is alive. I saw him several times during the last part of the race.”

Stats

Kelli McCaskill, a 6-foot senior center for the Cal Lutheran women’s basketball team, has averaged 22.7 points and shot 63.0% (58 of 92) from the field during the last six games for the Regals (20-0).

Village Christian’s Dave Gustafson scored 31 points in Tuesday night’s 75-48 victory over Maranatha, breaking the school single-season scoring record. Gustafson has 562 points, surpassing the 539 of John Brown in 1990-91.

Simi Valley girls’ basketball player Tawnee Cooper scored 23 points in a Marmonte League victory over Royal on Tuesday night to become only the third player in school history to surpass 500 points in a season. She has 515.

Things to Do

The third-ranked Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team will play host to top-ranked UCLA tonight at 7. The Matadors, unranked in the preseason, worked their way up by defeating two top 10 teams--Cal State Long Beach and Brigham Young--in the last two weeks.

Hart High will travel to Burroughs tonight at 7 for a game that will decide the Foothill League girls’ basketball championship. Both are tied for first and have split their first two meetings.

The L.A. Baptist boys’ basketball team will try to avenge its only Alpha League defeat when it plays at Village Christian tonight at 7:30 for a share of the league title.

* Compiled by Irene Garcia. Contributing: Dave Desmond, Fernando Dominguez, Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Dana Haddad, Michael Lazarus and John Ortega.