Top Sprinter Slows to a Limp

Noticeably absent from the Arcadia Invitational track meet Saturday night was Bryan Howard of Moreno Valley Canyon Springs, California’s top sprinter.

Meet organizers were so confident that Howard would compete that they put a big picture and biography of him in the program. But the senior runner watched from the bleachers as seven meet records were broken.

Howard, who has run the 100 meters in 10.31 seconds and the 200 in 20.76, has been bothered by left ankle and foot injuries since returning from a national indoor meet in Syracuse last month. He was injured when he stepped in a hole while warming up before practice at school.

“I was on crutches for four days, and I’m still only about 60% strong,” said Howard, who has been troubled by injuries throughout his prep career. “This is the third time I’ve sprained this ankle, and it’s just taking awhile to rehabilitate. I’m not worried.”

Howard said he hopes to resume competing when Canyon Springs starts Ivy League competition in two weeks.

Many of the 6,000 fans who attended the Arcadia Invitational were hoping to see Howard run against Deworski Odom of Philadelphia Overbrook in the 100. Odom won the race in 10.44 seconds, the second-fastest time in the nation this season. Howard said he has run against Odom four times, each having won twice.

*

The biggest prep meet of the season, the 37th Mt. San Antonio College Relays, will be held Friday in Walnut. Competition begins at 8 a.m. and ends about 10 p.m.

Headlining the estimated field of 3,000 athletes is Michael Granville of Bell Gardens, who ran an impressive 1:47.96 in the 800 at Arcadia. Granville, a junior, is scheduled to run the 200 and 400.

Two of the Southland’s top teams, the Pasadena Muir boys and Long Beach Poly girls, are expected to bring full squads.

*

Tim Ellis, hired last month to head the football program at Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills, may soon be without a job.

Trabuco Hills’ officials reopened the position after the school’s booster club and people in the community protested Ellis’ selection.

When popular Trabuco Hills coach Jim Barnett resigned after last season, Principal George Diedrich formed two committees to help select a replacement. Although neither committee recommended Ellis, who coached at Tustin the last two years, Diedrich hired him anyway.

Bill Crow, a popular Trabuco Hills assistant, was passed over in the hiring of Ellis, who had a 3-17 record in two seasons at Tustin. When Ellis’ selection was approved by the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, officials at Tustin opened the football job there.

Now that Diedrich has changed his stance, Ellis appears jobless.

*

Schea Cotton, a 6-foot-4 forward from Santa Ana Mater Dei, was selected to the Cal Hi Sports all-state team and to the Parade magazine All-American team.

But the sophomore was not named to his all-league team. South Coast League coaches said Cotton did not belong on the team because he had missed half the league season because of a groin injury.

“What a player does in the preseason and postseason should not have any bearing on the all-league team,” said Trabuco Hills Coach Rainer Wulf. “Schea missed half of the games, and that was the deciding factor.”

Said San Clemente Coach Ed Coyle: “When a kid plays well in all 10 league games, it is sort of difficult to leave him off for one who only played in half of them.”

*

The major league baseball strike has had a trickle-down effect on high school baseball.

The Upper Deck Trading Card Company, citing financial restructuring necessitated in part by the strike, will not return next season as the title sponsor for the 16-team tournament held at various sites in Orange County.

Tournament director Iran Novick said the event, which started Monday and ends Thursday night at Cal State Fullerton, will have new sponsors next season.

Local powers Fountain Valley and Mater Dei are included in this year’s field, along with nationally ranked Germantown, Tenn., and Scottsdale Horizon, among others.

Prep Notes

Inglewood guard-forward Paul Pierce scored 12 points for the West team in the Magic Roundball Classic on Sunday in Auburn Hills, Mich. The West defeated the East, 114-99. . . . LaKeisha Backus, a sprinter from Long Beach Wilson, won the 100 in 11.71 Saturday at the Texas Relays in Austin. That is the second-fastest girls’ prep time in the nation this season.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Times’ Top 20 Baseball Poll

The Times’ top 20 high school baseball poll, with teams from the City and Southern Sections.

School Sect. Div. Rec. LW 1. Millikan SS I 14-0 2 2. Fountain Valley SS I 11-1 1 3. Bishop Amat SS I 13-1 3 4. Quartz Hill SS III 10-0 5 5. El Dorado SS I 12-2 7 6. Glendora SS II 12-1 6 7. Mater Dei SS I 10-2 9 8. La Quinta SS III 15-2 14 9. Fontana SS I 13-1 NR 10. Peninsula SS I 9-2 4 11. Marina SS I 12-2 11 12. Arcadia SS I 10-2 13 13. Norte Vista SS III 12-1 10 14. Simi Valley SS I 11-3 8 15. Temecula Vly. SS II 12-1 15 16. South Hills SS II 10-0 16 17. Lakewood SS I 13-4 17 18. West Torrance SS I 10-3 18 19. Calabasas SS IV 10-0 19 20. Gahr SS II 12-3 NR