Five Teams Placed on Probation

The Woodland Hills Taft football program has been placed on a one-year probation by the City Section Rules Committee for allowing a non-high school student to stand on the sideline and for failing to exchange game tapes during the playoffs.

Four other football programs also were placed on probation.

Lake Balboa Birmingham and Gardena received probation for a brawl that broke out during the playoffs.

Crenshaw was given probation for using an ineligible player, and Venice was placed on probation for failing to exchange game tapes.

San Fernando’s boys’ basketball team and Van Nuys Grant’s girls’ soccer team also received probation for using ineligible players.

Eric Sondheimer

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Jeff Schofield had not hit the panic button, but the boys’ soccer coach at Huntington Beach Marina knew his team’s intensity was lacking after an 0-2-1 start in Sunset League play.

So he rounded up the leaders of the senior-dominated team and told them they needed to improve their play if they wanted to make a run in the Southern Section Division I playoffs.

Marina (17-7-2) is 9-1 in the 10 games since and will play host to Santa Margarita (22-1-4) in a playoff semifinal at 3 p.m. today after upsetting second-seeded La Verne Damien, 1-0, in a quarterfinal match Friday.

“I basically told them, ‘It’s up to you to decide what you guys want to make out of this season,’ ” Schofield said. “And they have responded very well. They’ve had a different mind-set. We’ve only had five shutouts this season, but two of them have come in the playoffs.”

Marina can advance to its first section final with a victory against Santa Margarita, the top-ranked team in the nation by Student Sports magazine.

-- John Ortega