Oxnard Lights It Up in L.A. Watts Games

Guards Damian Tafoya and Jacob Galloway and center Gary Eberhardt graduated from Oxnard High on Friday, but the Yellowjackets’ boys’ basketball program is in good hands if early results from the L.A. Watts Summer Games are any indication.

Oxnard, which finished 21-7 and won the inaugural Pacific View League title last season, will play Valley View of Moreno Valley in the quarterfinals of the Watts Games at Washington High at 11 a.m. today.

The Yellowjackets defeated Granite Hills of El Cajon, 65-35, in the first round, had a bye and beat J.W. North of Riverside, 58-44.

“The whole group has surprised me,” Coach Henry Lobo said. “It’s too early to start saying who’s playing well, but Matt Merricks, Nicholas Curtis, Ricky Hernandez and Jason Parker have done a good job in leading the team.”

Merricks, Curtis and Hernandez played key roles last season for Oxnard, which reached the second round of the Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs.

Merricks, a 6-foot-1 guard who’ll be a senior in the fall, averaged nine points. Curtis, a 6-7 junior, averaged 8.6 points and 6.9 rebounds.

How well those two play could determine if Oxnard can produce another 20-victory season after losing Tafoya (12.3-point average), Galloway (10.5 points, 5.4 assists) and Eberhardt (9.0 points, 8.3 rebounds).

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Lobo was selected The Times’ Ventura County coach of the year last season, but he considered resigning before deciding to return for his ninth season at Oxnard.

“It’s taken a lot of time and energy for me and the other coaches to get this program to where it’s at,” Lobo said. “I wanted to make sure I had the energy to keep it going.”’

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Point guard Aaron Bobik of Newbury Park, who missed last season because of a broken right wrist, won’t start practicing until the fall.

Bobik, younger brother of former Newbury Park standouts Daniel and Brian Bobik, underwent surgery in January, but his rehabilitation has been painstakingly slow because the injured bone is in an area that doesn’t receive a lot of blood.

In order to increase blood flow to the area and speed the healing, the 6-1 Bobik is wearing an electronic stimulation device on his right wrist 10 hours a day.

“It’s driving him crazy not being able to play,” Coach Steve Johnson said. “But we knew it was going to be a long rehabilitation process.”

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Annmarie Turpin of Simi Valley, who cleared a Ventura County-record 5-10 1/2, best in the state this year, in winning the girls’ high jump in the Southern Section Masters Meet, will take a month off after concluding her season with a tie for fifth in the USA Track & Field Junior Championships at the University of North Texas last week.

Turpin was unable to jump higher than 5-8 after the Masters Meet and placed fourth in the state championships, but she remains upbeat.

“Obviously, I would like to have won state,” Turpin said. “Everything I had been doing since last season had been pointing toward that meet. There was a lot of pressure there, but I don’t feel like I crumbled under the pressure. . . . It was just one of those things.”

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A tire toss, rock toss and heavy-bag relay are among six events that will be contested in the Ventura County Football Coaches Assn. linemen’s tournament at Rio Mesa today.

The Hogs tournament, as it is affectionately known, will start at 9 a.m. in conjunction with a 12-team, seven-on-seven passing tournament that begins at 9:30.

“We started the Hogs tournament four or five years ago to give the linemen a chance to compete against each other during the summer,” Coach George Contreras of Rio Mesa said. “And it seems like it has become a big deal to the kids.”

More than 20 five-man teams are scheduled to compete in the Hogs tournament, which will also include competition in the bench press, football sled relay and tug of war.

The popular tug of war is contested during a break between morning and afternoon sessions of the passing tournament. Competition in the Hogs tournament is whittled down to two finalists.

“The [final] is a lot of fun,” Contreras said. “You’ve got two teams going against each other, surrounded by about 400 or 500 screaming people.”

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The second and final day of the Ventura County Coaches Assn. boys’ basketball tournament begins today at 10 a.m., with the first semifinal at 3 p.m. and the championship game at 7.

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Twenty-four boys’ teams, including Cleveland, Sylmar and Harvard-Westlake, and 16 girls’ squads, including Harvard-Westlake, Thousand Oaks and Hart, will begin play in the War on the Floor basketball tournament at Pierce College and Canoga Park High on Tuesday.

The inaugural girls’ tournament begins with the Fairfax-Chaminade game at the Pierce south gymnasium at 9 a.m.

Boys’ play begins at 10 a.m. with a game between Taft and Hart at Canoga Park, followed by an 11:10 game between Santa Monica and Reseda.

All other games will be played at Pierce.