Montclair Prep’s Appeal Will Wait

The executive committee of the Southern Section has agreed to hear an appeal of a one-year ban on postseason play for all athletic teams at Van Nuys Montclair Prep, but the committee doesn’t meet again until April, leaving the school’s winter sport teams out of the playoffs.

Montclair Prep received a one-year playoff ban from Commissioner Jim Staunton two weeks ago after he concluded that Principal Vernon Simpson had violated the section’s undue influence rule by telling a student last year to leave school if he didn’t want to play football.

With its boys’ and girls’ basketball teams considered title contenders, Montclair Prep sought an immediate reconsideration of the ban.

By appealing, Montclair Prep has opened the door to further investigation of its athletic program. The Southern Section has begun looking into allegations involving Nick Stiggers, a former basketball player who returned to his home in Tennessee during Thanksgiving break.

Staunton said he has found “irregularities” in Stiggers’ financial aid. Stiggers lived at Montclair Prep as a boarder. He has since transferred to Booker T. Washington in Memphis but was declared ineligible by the Tennessee Athletic Assn.

-- Eric Sondheimer

The executive committee of the California Interscholastic Federation voted Thursday to move the state wrestling championships from Stockton to Bakersfield beginning next season.

According to CIF spokesman Jim Duel, last year’s state tournament at University of the Pacific’s Spanos Center sold out with 6,100 fans. By moving to Centennial Garden and Convention Center, the capacity will be raised to 9,446.

“What’s happened is, we’ve basically outgrown the Spanos Center,” Duel said. “We actually for the first time last year had to turn people away, and you hate to do that.”

Among the issues to be discussed at the CIF Federated Council meeting today in San Diego is a proposal to prohibit schools from accepting corporate sponsorships in the form of money, equipment or clothes for individual players by making such gifts the property of a school’s athletic program.

Another issue to be voted on is the requirement that basketball, volleyball and cross-country postseason competition be enrollment-based throughout the state. The Southern Section already has enrollment-based playoffs in those sports, but other sections in Northern California allow schools to petition to compete in higher divisions.

There are also proposals to stage state championships in boys’ and girls’ golf and to make rally scoring in volleyball an option next season in preparation for required application of the format in 2004-05.

Another proposal would allow practices and games on Sundays for schools that are run on religious tenets that prohibit activity from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

-- Lauren Peterson

Trevor Clark, a water polo player who led Anaheim Servite to last season’s Southern Section Division II championship, has signed with USC. Clark was co-player of the year in Division II.

Marty Matthies, a water polo player at North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, has signed with California. Matthies was the Southern Section Division I player of the year in 2001 and a first-team selection this season.

Fox Sports Net 2 will televise the boys’ basketball game between Westchester High and Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary live at 4:30 p.m. PST Saturday from Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, N.J.

Westchester (22-2), ranked as high as No. 7 in one national poll, will attempt to hand nationally top-ranked St. Vincent-St. Mary (14-1) its first on-court loss this season. The Fighting Irish had to forfeit one game after the Ohio High School Athletic Assn. ruled standout LeBron James ineligible for accepting free sports jerseys from a clothing store. A judge temporarily overturned that ruling Wednesday, allowing James to play against Westchester in the Isles Prime Time Shootout.

The game will also be televised live on the YES Network, available throughout the Southland on DirecTV Channel 622. Fox Sports Net 2 will replay the game at 10 a.m. Sunday.

-- Ben Bolch