Compton Loses Wheat for Rest of Season to Knee Injury

Anthony Wheat, the Compton Dominguez High free safety and quarterback who leads the Southern Section with seven interceptions, will sit out the rest of the season because of partially torn knee ligaments, Don Coach Willie Donerson said.

Wheat, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound senior, suffered the injury during Dominguez’s 37-0 loss to Long Beach Jordan on Oct. 11. He missed the Dons’ 22-0 victory over Lynwood last week and underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam, which revealed the torn ligaments.

The multitalented Wheat, who also competes in the triple jump on the track team, is being recruited by USC, California, Illinois and Washington.

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Fred Washington, a member of The Times’ all-star boys’ basketball team last season for Torrance Bishop Montgomery, has committed to Stanford, Knight Coach Doug Mitchell said.

The 6-6 forward averaged 22.4 points and 8.5 rebounds and shot 53% from the field for a team that won its third consecutive Southern Section championship.

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Santa Ana Mater Dei, ranked No. 1 in several national preseason boys’ basketball polls, will play LeBron James and Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 4 in the Dream Classic at Pauley Pavilion.

James, a 6-7 senior swingman, is expected to be a lottery pick in the 2003 NBA draft. Mater Dei is led by 6-5 forward D.J. Strawberry, who has committed to Maryland, and 6-3 guard Wesley Washington, who has committed to Minnesota.

In other games involving Southland teams, Los Angeles Loyola plays Lakewood Mayfair at 2:30 p.m. and Compton Centennial plays Carson at 4:45. Brooklyn (N.Y.) Lincoln, led by highly touted junior point guard Sebastian Telfair, will play Duke-bound junior DeMarcus Nelson and Vallejo at 8:15.

Admission, which includes all four games, will be $25 or $20 for floor reserved, $15 for loge and $10 for general admission. Tickets will be available at the UCLA Central Ticket Office as well as Ticketmaster beginning Nov. 4.

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Alison Costello of Anaheim Esperanza says her ninth-place performance in the Great American Cross-Country Festival in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 28 had a lot to do with her victory in the sweepstakes race of the Orange County championships at Irvine Regional Park on Saturday.

“I didn’t have any definite goal heading into [Charlotte],” Costello said. “I thought I would be running well if I could finish close to Bethany [Nickless of Fountain Valley]. My attitude was, ‘I’ll just go out there and see how it goes.’ ... But as the race went on, all of a sudden I was running with all these girls I had heard of but didn’t know what they looked like.”

Costello’s time of 20:02.3 over the 5,000-meter course at the Ballantyne Resort made her the top Californian in the meet, putting her ahead of highly regarded Southern Section runners such as Liza Pasciuto of Murrieta Valley (12th) and Nickless (20th).

“That was a big race for me,” Costello said. “It did a lot for my confidence.”

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The Mt. San Antonio College Invitational cross-country meet will try something new Friday when it holds team and individual sweepstakes races combining the top entries from Divisions III, IV and V.

Separate sweepstakes races had previously been held in Divisions III, IV and V, but high school division director Tim O’Rourke decided to combine them this year in order to give those teams the best competitive conditions in which to run.

The change means that defending state Division III boys’ champion Barstow and three-time defending state Division IV boys’ champion McFarland will race each other instead of running in separate races.

The Division I-II team and individual sweepstakes races will be held Saturday morning.