Fargas Narrows College Choices to USC, Michigan

Notre Dame High football Coach Kevin Rooney said Wednesday that star tailback Justin Fargas has narrowed his college choices to Michigan and USC.

Fargas, regarded as the area’s best high school player, rushed for 2,945 yards and scored 38 touchdowns last year as a junior while leading the Knights to the Southern Section Division III championship game. Fargas had also considered Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford and UCLA.

Another knockout: Oxnard welterweight Fernando Vargas improved to 6-0 by knocking out Kevin Payne 1 minute 47 seconds into their scheduled four-round bout Tuesday night in Austin, Texas. Vargas, 19, a 1996 U.S. Olympian, has knocked out all of his opponents since turning pro in March. Payne entered the fight with a 7-1 record.

Vargas is scheduled to fight Oct. 4 in Atlantic City, N.J., on the undercard of the Lennox Lewis-Andrew Golota heavyweight title fight.

Making a move: The Antelope Valley College track and field teams will compete in the Western State Conference next year because Chaffey and College of the Desert have dropped their programs.

Antelope Valley was one of five track programs in the Foothill Conference this year, but when Chaffey and Desert dropped their teams, the conference was left with three programs, one shy of the minimum required.

“In the long run, I think this will help us,” Antelope Valley Coach Mark Covert said of the move. “This way, the kids are going to have to step up and compete. If the kids can compete in the WSC, they should have a good chance to do well at the [Southern California] preliminaries. Unless you were in one of the really good events in the Foothill Conference, a lot of kids experienced a reality check at the Southern Cals.”

Antelope Valley will remain in the Foothill Conference in cross-country because there are four programs.

Going up: The top four teams in last year’s state Division V boys’ cross-country championships will compete at the Division IV level this season because of a change in the size of divisions.

McFarland, Holtville, St. Bonaventure and Oak Park, which finished first through fourth in last year’s state Division V final, will compete at the Division IV level this year because they no longer qualify as Division V schools based on their California Basic Educational Data (CBED) numbers.

Division V included schools with enrollments of 524 and below last year, but those figures are 400 and below this year. Division IV now includes schools with enrollments of 401-907. It was 525-907 last year.

Rocky win: M.K. Kanke of Granada Hills won the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour feature race at Colorado National Speedway in Erie, Colo., last weekend, winning by 6.84 seconds over David Karst of Casper, Wyo.

Kanke currently ranks ninth in the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour points standings with 1,576 points.

Bantam champs: Jesse Perez of Burbank High was named most valuable player and Brendan Ryan of Notre Dame was also selected to the all-tournament team for the Southern California Suns 14- and 15-year-old baseball team that won the USABA Bantam World Series in Alberta, Canada, last week.

Perez batted .357 with five runs batted in and as a pitcher was 2-0 with a 1.27 earned-run average. Ryan batted .545 with eight RBIs.

The Suns beat Oakland, 7-0, in the tournament final.

United victory: The Valley United Venom Soccer Club’s girls’ under-12 team won the Sun and Surf International tournament with a 2-0 victory over the Long Beach Lightening Blue last weekend at Cal State Long Beach.