Deep on Talent, Short on Class : You could say it was bound to happen, but that would be the poorest of excuses.

When the girls’ basketball teams from Kennedy and Taft high schools met Wednesday for the first time this season, players couldn’t keep their emotions in check and a fight finally broke out.

And for that, blame Kennedy Coach Donis Bailey and Monia Calhoun, the player who instigated the fight. They knew the game was a disaster waiting to happen.

Not expecting as much is like living on a slope in Malibu and not bracing for a major rain storm.

The well-publicized hostilities between the teams started in the fall, when four members from Taft’s team that finished 20-1 in 1995-96--Calhoun, Vanessa Dunn, Rosa Ortiz and Tammy Barber--transferred to Kennedy under the state’s open-enrollment policy.

Taft officials suspected Kennedy coaches of recruiting violations, but there wasn’t an investigation until mid-December--when two Kennedy teachers said Brian Lewis, a former Taft volunteer assistant, was helping to coach the Golden Cougars during practice.

Lewis’ application to become a walk-on coach had been turned down by Kennedy Principal Warren Mason during the summer. At the same time, Mason forbade Lewis from attending practices because he didn’t want Kennedy to look guilty by association.

During the investigation, Bailey was suspended. But while Bailey’s job hung in the balance, her players--including the new foursome--came to her defense and said that Lewis had never been at a practice.

Bailey was reinstated after five days and the Golden Cougars, with visions of the City 4-A championship dancing in their heads, were off and running.

Kennedy looked every bit a title contender in winning 18 of its first 21 games before facing Taft.

Case closed? Of course not. There still were games to be played against the Toreadors.

On Wednesday, the Toreadors--all seven of them--showed up for a West Valley League game at Kennedy. Three Taft players--Tynisha Howze, Cheree Garrett and Marisol Lopez--were teammates last season of the players who transferred to Kennedy.

This was not a happy reunion. No handshakes or hugs before the game. No “Hi, how have you been?” salutations.

This was a grudge match, period.

When the teams took the floor, opponents greeted each other with the type of defiant looks that seemed to foreshadow more than a basketball game.

“They’re 16-, 17-year-old girls and their parents are all fired up about this,” Bailey said, referring to her players. “It’s an emotional thing for all of the families.”

After a close first half, Kennedy dominated, using a 23-3 run to start the third period and open up a 44-22 lead. That’s when the game turned ugly.

Late in the third quarter, Calhoun, an imposing 5-foot-10 center, batted down a pass by Lopez. The ball went out of bounds, but Calhoun thrust back her shoulders and stared down her former teammate, who was only a couple of feet away. The referee hit Calhoun with a technical foul.

Then, with 2:18 to play and Kennedy up by 24 points, Bailey pulled out four of her starters. However, Calhoun, a starter, reentered after sitting out the previous three minutes because of an injury.

With 30 seconds remaining, Taft’s Howze drove on Calhoun and both players fell, Howze on top of Calhoun. No foul was called, but a fight ensued after Calhoun came up shoving. After players and referees separated the former teammates, the game was called.

“I expected certain behavior from a particular player and she didn’t disappoint me,” Taft Coach Brandy Price said of Calhoun. “She threw elbows the entire game and I’m just upset that a coach would put somebody in there and allow that to happen.”

Price, in her first season at Taft, said she was disappointed but not surprised by the reception the Toreadors received.

“We came here and they were immediately talking what the girls call ‘trash’ and said, ‘Wipe the smiles off your faces, you’re about to lose,’ ” Price said.

Dunn, who leads Kennedy with a 15-point average, said she was not surprised the game ended in a fight.

“It’s personal from all the trouble they gave us,” Dunn said.

That’s an interesting take.

They?

Taft didn’t abandon Dunn or the other three players who transferred. It was the other way around. And as far as the investigation of that transfer goes, eyewitness accounts from two Kennedy teachers prompted that.

If anybody has a right to feel jilted it’s Taft’s players.

Advice to Kennedy: Enjoy your glossy record and forget trying to even any other score.

“You talk to them, you try to get them to put it all aside and just play basketball,” Bailey said of her players. “ . . . They just haven’t been real good at controlling their feelings.”

Well coach, that’s where you come in. You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.

When Kennedy plays at Taft on Friday in the regular-season finale for both teams, which will you be?

*

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

That could be the motto for the latest push by some CIF officials to get the 10 state sections to participate in a handful of alliance football bowl games.

It’s been more than four years since City Section 4-A champion Sylmar and Southern Section Division I champion Bishop Amat met in the Reebok Bowl at Anaheim Stadium.

The 1992 game featured two unbeaten teams in a game televised live by Channel 13. It had all the makings of success--but it was an unqualified failure.

Little more than 8,000 fans showed up and some of the corporate sponsors said they would not be interested in a second Reebok Bowl.

“We had a nice TV contract, but it was not a profitable game.” said Bill Clark, the Southern Section’s assistant commissioner in charge of football.

Still, preliminary discussions have started at the state level about starting alliance bowl games as early as next season.

The working proposal is that large-school champions from each of the state’s 10 sections would meet in five bowl games.

The biggest argument against such a format is that it extends an already-long season. Two-a-day practices begin in mid-August for most Southern California teams.

Furthermore, section playoffs in Central and Northern California conclude around Thanksgiving, while Southern Section and City playoffs end two weeks later.

That means that if the Southern Section and City decided to take part, the other section teams would have to stay game ready another three weeks. Their seasons would be 17 weeks long.

Clark, who has been a section official for 20 years, remembers the problems when teams were polled about the Reebok Bowl.

“All of the schools didn’t buy into it,” Clark said. “Bishop Amat didn’t want anything to do with it--at first. Then they said, ‘OK,’ because they were representing the Southern Section and didn’t want to let the section down. But only one year [they said].”

And Bishop Amat wasn’t the only school to send its regrets.

“We had one-third of the Division I schools say they didn’t want to play [in a bowl game],” Clark said.

Then there’s the little problem of funding the games.

“To put a game on at the Coliseum, you’re talking about $50,000 to $55,000 just for expenses,” Clark said. “You have to have somebody underwrite that.”

Still, despite all the arguments, guess what?

“My personal sense is we’ll probably support it,” Clark said.

Go figure.