VENTURA COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLS / JOHN LYNCH : Santa Paula Feeds on Cardinals’ Basketball Success

They rolled out the red carpet in Santa Paula this week. OK, so the carpet only leads to a fast-food restaurant. Members of the boys’ basketball team will take it.

Coach Tom Donahue had imagined what a victory over Santa Clara would mean to the community. Still, after Tuesday night’s historic 52-49 victory that ended Santa Clara’s 91-game league winning streak and accounted for Santa Paula’s first victory over the Saints in almost a quarter of a century, Donahue was overwhelmed by the town’s response.

“People who have been here a long time have been ecstatic,” he said. “It’s almost like I removed a curse from them. After all those years of getting beat, they have something to be happy about.”

The team was treated Wednesday to lunch, a real teen-aged fantasy: All the fast-food you can eat. Practice was a little sluggish that day. The euphoria--and all those hamburgers--hadn’t worn off.

Free pizza arrived after practice, and Donahue has a standing offer at a Santa Paula restaurant for a free meal. With all the free food rolling in, sounds like conditioning could be a problem before the playoffs start.

Donahue, a transplanted Pennsylvanian in his fifth season at Santa Paula, is a relative newcomer to the Santa Clara streak. He was reminded of the streak’s legacy--Santa Paula hadn’t beaten the Saints since 1972--when he received letters of gratitude from long-suffering Santa Paula graduates.

“I got letters from former players from 1959 and 1964, just saying thanks and congratulations,” he said.

The celebration also stopped classes this week. Students in Donahue’s history and economics classes begged him to use class time to show a tape of the game. On Thursday, he relented.

“Best lesson I had all year,” he said. “Everyone was glued to it.”

However, Santa Paula’s work for the week wasn’t done. The Cardinals still had to defeat Moorpark on Friday to clinch a share of the Frontier League title. Players admitted it was difficult to stop the celebration and focus on the game.

“(Donahue) told us to put the Santa Clara game out of our minds, but it was tough,” senior center Dan Herrera said. “But we practiced well on Thursday and were ready for Moorpark.”

Santa Paula (23-2, 9-1) whipped the Musketeers, 83-73, to earn its share of the league title and renew the celebration.

Said Herrera: “This was the greatest week of my life.”

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The other guys: Shed no tears for Santa Clara. Lou Cvijanovich, a 68-year-old coaching legend who has spent nearly 40 years at the school and previously put together an 82-game league winning streak, greeted the defeat graciously and guaranteed that his players would spend little time fretting about it.

“If they don’t bounce back, I’ll bounce ‘em back,” he said with a growl. “There’ll be no whining or crying. We’re too tough for that.”

For a reminder, players need only look to their coach, who proclaimed, “Toughness starts with me.”

No one is arguing the point.

“I can’t lie,” senior forward Kevin Collins said. “The loss hurts. But look at him. He’s a rock. We see that and it reflects on us.”

Cvijanovich, who has no plans to retire, vowed this week to immediately start another streak. The team got the message. After victories Thursday and Friday gave Santa Clara (17-7, 9-1) a share of the league title with Santa Paula, the new streak is at two--and counting.

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History lesson: Newbury Park Coach Nori Parvin stared down some personal history this week and erased a bad memory in the process.

In her 21 seasons as the girls’ basketball coach, Newbury Park has never completed an undefeated league season, coming closest in 1979 when the Panthers were 11-0 before losing to cross-town rival Thousand Oaks in the last game of the regular season.

Parvin recalls that loss vividly because it came near her birthday--Valentine’s Day--and Thousand Oaks’ top player that season was Sarah Valentine.

At the start of the week, the scenario looked all too familiar to Parvin. Newbury Park was unbeaten in Marmonte League play and Thousand Oaks stood in the way again. This time, it’s going to be a happier birthday for Parvin.

Newbury Park buried the Lancers on Tuesday, 55-29, winning at Thousand Oaks for the first time since 1987. The Panthers, who are 24-1 and the Southern Section’s No. 1 team in Division III, completed a 14-0 league season with a 65-46 victory on Thursday over Channel Islands.

“The girls knew what was on the line and they really wanted it,” Parvin said. “This means a lot. Fourteen is a good number.”

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Not so soon: Late in the first half of a fiercely contested girls’ soccer match this week between Buena and Ventura, an argument erupted along the Ventura sideline over which team had possession for the ensuing throw-in.

Players from each team joined the argument, and as one snide remark followed another, spectators heard a loud, “Oh yeah? Well, look who’s winning,” from Buena’s Jennifer Alderman.

Buena led, 1-0, but not for long. Not 10 seconds later, Ventura was celebrating a 1-1 tie, after the Cougars’ Christie Birney whipped a throw-in over Alderman’s head to Maggie Dwire, who scored from 25 yards on the right wing.

“Normally Jennifer wouldn’t say ‘boo’ out there,” Buena Coach Ed Daane said. “I guess she paid the price.”

Buena, the Southern Section’s top-ranked team in Division II,got the last laugh with a 3-1 victory.

Tris Wykes contributed to this notebook.