Poly Must Forfeit Its Victories

The Sun Valley Poly High football team lost to Van Nuys, 33-19, Friday night in a Valley Pac-8 Conference game at Van Nuys.

But Poly, which endured more than two years of losing before a recent three-game win streak, suffered a bigger loss earlier in the day when the Parrots learned they had used an ineligible player and must forfeit their victories.

At mid-season, the Parrots were 0-6 and had not won a game in almost two years.

After an Oct. 17 article in The Times, the team received dozens of telephone calls and letters. There were handwritten notes and neatly typed pages, messages of sympathy and encouragement.

This outpouring was followed by an unexpected win streak. Poly beat North Hollywood and Grant, two teams with losing records, on successive Friday nights. Then came a victory over Monroe, which was 6-2 at the time.

But lineman George Lomavita ran afoul of a California Interscholastic Federation rule stating that a player has four years of eligibility once he enters ninth grade.

According to the Poly coaches, Lomavita took two years to get through the ninth grade. He played as a 10th-grader at Grant, then skipped a year of school to be with his ailing grandfather in Hawaii.

When Lomavita returned, he enrolled at Poly as an 11th-grader. But four years had passed since he first entered ninth grade.

The matter came to light after Grant administrators contacted Poly this week. Poly co-Coach Lee Jackson questioned why the rival school had waited so long.