Westchester Eligibility Decision Awaited

After more than six hours of testimony and deliberation Tuesday, a specially convened City Section rules committee did not announce whether high school basketball players Gabriel Pruitt and Ray Reese would be eligible to play for Westchester this season.

The decision of the 10-member panel will be announced today, City Section Commissioner Barbara Fiege said. Pruitt, a junior guard, starred for Compton Centennial last season and Reese, a sophomore forward, played for Carson. Both players’ transfers to Westchester, the reigning state Division I champion, are being contested by their former schools.

Carson officials say Reese’s father was coached by Westchester Athletic Director Brian Henderson on how to request a specific transfer from Carson. They also say Westchester assistant Marlon Morton recruited Reese, who was among the top freshmen in the City Section last season.

After Reese was denied a transfer on three occasions, his father, Ray Sr., filed a change of residence for his son. That new address is being challenged by Carson officials, who contend Reese does not live there.

Before meeting with the panel on Tuesday, Morton, Henderson and Ed Azzam, Westchester’s head coach, all denied wrongdoing. The meeting was closed to reporters.

As for Pruitt, who helped lead Centennial to the state Division III championship game last season, the rules committee investigated whether he had already used his only allowable transfer. Pruitt initially lived in the Manual Arts district and may have used his one inter-district transfer to go to Centennial, in the Compton school district.

Tuesday’s meeting centered on the eligibility of the players. If penalties are to be levied against Westchester, they would be determined at another meeting, Fiege said.

The City Section basketball season starts Monday.

*

Fillmore posted its highest finish in the Ventura County cross-country championships with its runner-up finish behind Simi Valley Royal last Saturday. But Flashes Coach Epi Torres said Oak Park is the team to beat in Tri-Valley League finals today at Lake Casitas.

“They’ve won the last four or five league titles,” Torres said. “And they beat us in the Southern Section and state championships last year.... They’re the team to beat.”

Oak Park, the two-time defending Southern Section Division IV champion and runner-up to McFarland in the last two state meets, placed sixth in the Ventura County championships. But the Eagles’ coaching staff kept some of their top runners out of the meet in an effort to keep them fresh in the final month of the season.

*

“Some coaches don’t want to race their kids too much at this time of the season,” Torres said. “They’re afraid they’ll get injured. But we just look at races as part of our training. We use them to help get us ready for the big meets at the end of the season.”

*

Lindsey Nelson of Orange and Gary Sacks of Calabasas won the 18-and-under division Tier I singles titles of the 17th J.P. Yamasaki Memorial junior tennis tournament Sunday at Ridgeline Country Club in Orange.

Nelson, a junior at Villa Park, defeated Sesil Karatanchev of Ojai, 6-4, 7-5, in the girls’ final.

Sacks, a sophomore at Calabasas, won, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, over Matthew Ozurovich of Mission Viejo in the boys’ match.

The two-weekend U.S. Tennis Assn. is staged in memory of a former junior-circuit player who died at the age of 15 in a skiing accident in Mammoth.