Edison Sets Up Tough Girls’ Basketball Event

Eight girls’ basketball league champions will face each other in December at the first Orange County Championship, a new tournament hosted by Edison High.

The tournament, which includes two pools of four, will be held Dec. 27-30, and directly compete with what has typically been the area’s premier tournament at Marina High.

Mater Dei, Troy, Foothill, Edison, Rosary, El Toro and San Clemente, all of which were in the county’s final top 10 poll, are included along with Pacific Coast League champion Laguna Hills.

Edison Coach Dave White said he almost got defending state champion Brea Olinda to commit to the inaugural field.

“That would have instantly made it the tournament in Orange County, in my opinion,” he said. “The other eight teams are real good, but Brea is the epitome of girls’ basketball the last 10 years. Without them, I think it’s still eight of the top 10 or 12 teams.”

“They’ve expressed interest in playing the second year, along with Esperanza, Cerritos and [Riverside] J.W. North.”

White said the tournament will expand to 16 teams in 2000 and change to a bracketed format.

* Trabuco Hills has hired Michelle Macintyre as its girls’ basketball coach, the school announced Thursday.

Macintyre, named to The Times All-Orange County team after averaging 17.4 points and 4.8 assists in 1994, played three years at Hawaii.

She assisted one season at Hawaii, and coached the junior varsity last season at Riverside Rubidoux.

Macintyre replaces Howard Stephens, who resigned after six seasons with a 70-81 record.

* Nicole Howard, a first-team All-South Coast League girls’ basketball player at Dana Hills, has enrolled to attend Capistrano Valley in the fall.

Howard, who will be a senior, averaged 16.9 points for the Dolphins, who were 19-9 last season.

With the resignation of Shawn Mulligan, Dana Hills’ next coach will be its third coach in four seasons.

* Pete Belanto said he will remain at Capistrano Valley as its girls’ basketball coach.

Belanto had resigned before the 1998-99 season, but agreed to direct the program when his replacement, Marc Ward, accepted the job but resigned before the season began.

Now, Belanto will stay for his seventh season; his record is 92-70. The Cougars were 9-16 last season.

“My son [Joseph] is going to be a freshman and my wife [Loren] thought it would be a good idea if I would be around a little bit,” Belanto said Thursday. “There are also some nice young freshman kids who are coming in.

“My original plan was to just take one year off, and [the school] didn’t want me to do that. They worked around my schedule so that I could coach last season and do some things I wanted to do, like coach my younger son’s [Ryan’s] Little League team.

“It worked out that now I’m back where I thought I would be anyway.”