Neck Injury Puts Scare Into Coach

Not exactly a happy birthday, but it could have been a lot worse for Rachelle Globig.

Globig, a 5-foot-4 defensive specialist at Highland High, ran into a teammate while diving for a volleyball against Saugus last Thursday and was motionless for nearly 25 minutes.

“I’ve been coaching volleyball now for 10 years and that’s the first time we’ve had paramedics come,” Highland Coach Mike Bird said. “It was pretty scary.”

X-rays at the hospital were negative and Globig, who turned 17 that day, was diagnosed with a sprained neck. She is expected back within three weeks.

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Royal girls’ volleyball Coach Ferguson received a red card Thursday against Harvard-Westlake, marking the first time in at least 10 years he has been ejected.

Angered by a referee’s call, Ferguson threw a water bottle.

“I deserved it,” Ferguson said. “You don’t do things like that and not get a red card.”

Maybe he should do it more often: Royal beat the Wolverines in five games.

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The La Canada water polo team, expected by Harvard-Westlake tournament organizers to be one of eight teams in a tournament last weekend, was replaced by Rio Mesa because La Canada had previously committed to the Bell Gardens tournament.

La Canada Coach Larry Naeve said he was not aware that his team was entered in the Harvard-Westlake tournament.

The addition of Rio Mesa, a first-year program which lost its four games by an average of 22 goals, weakened a field that was supposed include the region’s top teams.

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Harvard-Westlake won its four water polo games by an average score of 20-6, including a 18-6 rout over Crescenta Valley in the final on Saturday.

But without La Canada, which lost, 4-2, to Harvard-Westlake in a summer game, and Royal, which made the Division IV finals in each of the last two years, the Wolverines will have to hold off on using this tournament to proclaim itself “the area’s best team.”

La Canada finished second in the Bell Gardens tournament. Royal, which declined an invitation to the Harvard-Westlake tournament, did not play this weekend.

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Notre Dame and Coach Neil Coffman get a serious test when Notre Dame travels to L.A. Baptist for a nonleague girls’ volleyball match today at 6:30 p.m.

In his first year as coach, Coffman, a former Cal State Northridge All-American, must figure out a way to bottle up L.A. Baptist’s talented trio of Kristen Jensen, Gloria Erickson and Patricia Stanton.

Notre Dame will counter with January MacHold, a 5-foot-10 middle blocker, and setter Nevada Blonstein.