valley pac 8 preview

Here's another preview of a great City Section league. As league play begins it's once again time to focus on some of the teams and players who will be getting the job done this year. The Valley Pac-8 Conference is a City Section Conference which, like the Northwest Valley Conference, is actually divided into two different leagues: The East Valley League, which is made up of Division 4A school, and the Mid-Valley League, which features all 3-A Division Schools. If you check our City Section schedules for the Conference, you'll see that the first part of the season, all the teams in the conference play each other. The City Section, in it's inifinite wisdom, calls this "Conference Play". Then, starting on January 28, they switch to "League" play, in which only the 3A teams play other 3A teams, and 4A only plays 4A. Go figure. Does it really make any difference? We don't know, but here are the standings so far:

Northwest Valley Conference--As of 1/13/97

East Valley League 4A Division
School	League		Season
School	W	L	W	L
North Hollywood	0	0	10	6
Grant	0	0	9	6
Canoga Park	0	0	3	11
Monroe	0	0	2	9

Mid-Valley League 3A Division
School	League		Season
School	W	L	W	L
Sylmar	0	0	7	7
Poly	0	0	6	8
Reseda	0	0	5	9
Van Nuys	0	0	1	11

If you think last year's records and standings mean anything this year, here they are:

1996-97 STANDINGS: East Valley League (4-A): Canoga Park 7-3 in league, 15-11 overall; Monroe 6-4, 8-15; North Hollywood 4-6, 10-13; Grant 4-6, 7-15; Mid-Valley League (3-A): Poly 8-2, 18-8; Sylmar 8-2, 17-9; Van Nuys 3-7, 8-14; Reseda 0-10, 0-20

Again, we don't place much credence in last year's records, and think they're pretty meaningless. That was then, and this is now. So let's look at the individuals and the teams this year. And in a little trivia question, who are the only two coaches who have been at their schools for more than three years? Jay Werner of Poly and Howard Levine of Grant. And who's the only coach who actually played at his high school? Howie Levine. And who's the head usher at Dodger Stadium during the summer? You guessed it, Howie Levine, who's been doing that gig for the last 25 years.

We're picking the East Valley as a race between Grant and North Hollywood, and if we had to guess right about now, we'd say the momentum is with Grant. But who knows.

North Hollywood: We've done several stories on NoHo, including an early season preview, which has also been updated several times (use the search button at your left if you want background on NoHo). Currently though, Keron Wilkerson, who averaged 20 points a game for North Hollywood as a junior, is up to 24 per game this season, and he's the second leading scorer in the region's City Section, just behind Gil Arenas, who's way out in front with 32.9 per game. Wilkerson is also one of the leading rebounders, along with Johnathon Hicks, and they are both averaging 6.6 per game. The Huskies have steadily improved since struggling in the Simi Valley tournament, beating University in overtime last week. "We're playing better and better," North Hollywood Coach Rob Bloom said. "The biggest difference is we're learning to be less selfish. The passing is starting to work." Keron Wilkerson is also one of the leading stealers, ranked 9th in the region with 2.3 per game, and with his backcourt partner DeJon Lee, who is the ranked second in steals (again behind Gil Arenas) with 3.6, they are averaging together 5.9 per game.

Grant: We've featured several articles and a very early season preview of this team, so if you want to do a little research, use the search thing on the navigation bar and type in "Grant". The Huskies' biggest challenge should come from Grant, led by the incredibly talented Gilbert Arenas. The junior guard leads City Section players from the region with a 32.9 scoring average and leads Grant (9-6) in every statistical category, and he also leads almost every school in every stat. While some (the Times) have said that the "Lancers have little else" that's not quite accurate. Sophomores Mike Yildiz and Krishna Evans and senior Adir Levy are solid players, but do need to step it up a bit. Even so, Evans is onone of the leading rebounders in the City Section with 7.1 per game (Arenas is getting 9.1 per game). And Adir Levy is still one of the leading scorers in the City Section in the region, having hit for 160 total points in 15 games, and he's still averaging 10.7 per game, even if he has struggled of late. Arenas has played only 37 games for Grant, but he's already broken the school career scoring record and leads the Lancers in almost every offensive category.

Monroe: The only team without an established scoring threat is Monroe, which lost forward Mark Cumbiss to ineligibility before the school year began. Cumbiss averaged 17 points and seven rebounds. The Vikings (2-9) lost another key player when senior John Ennis, a starting forward last season, decided to skip basketball to concentrate on baseball.

Canoga Park: The defending East Valley champion, lost almost everyone, including All-City guard Carloes Harper, to graduation. The Hunters are 3-11 but Coach Ralph Turner expects improvement. Canoga Park point guard Vlady Sandoval is the only returning starter for the Hunters

Sylmar: Sylmar have only two leading scorers (at least according to the Times' stats cutoff) and that's Buckley transfer George Wrighster, who are is near the bottom of the cut-off at 8.5 points per game, and Brandon Jacobs who is averaging 8.7. This is a team which is only .500, but, one they've had some great battles. Playing Simi Valley in the semifinals of the Hart tournament two weeks ago, Sylmar seemed sluggish, and not very impressive at first, and guard Brandon Jacobs, the Spartans' best shooter, missed most of his shots early and only center Joey Youman scored in double figures. Yet, after three quarters, Sylmar trailed the top-ranked team in the region by only three points. We don't necessarily credit that to Sylmar being that good, but to Simi's post-Vegas Prep Classic jet-lag and let-down. While Simi eventually won by 14, the game at least served notice to the rest of the Valley Pac-8 Conference that Sylmar might be able to hang with one of the best-- at least for three quarters. Is Sylmar getting better? The following day, Sylmar beat Cleveland, one of the best teams in the Northwest Valley Conference. And then last week in a tournament in Fresno the Spartans won their opening game by 29 points before ultimately losing to Fresno Edison by five. Sylmar has had some early problems. Junior forward Jeremiah Turner, expected to be a top player, broke a bone in his hand. He may return next month. Dedrick Washington and Ervin Gonzales have been fighting nagging injuries, and Jacobs was slowed by the flu. But the balanced Spartans have played better in recent weeks, with no player averaging more than 10 points. Since every other team in the Mid-Valley League has a sub-.500 record, the Spartans might just be the favorite among the conference's 3-A teams. Or they might not. And they do feature one of the more "colorful" coaches, Burt Escoto. We tried to talk to Burt early on before the season to get a fix on what was up with Sylmar, but he refused to return any of our calls. Too bad. And in one of those "interesting" moments, Escoto pulled off a move which still has those who heard and saw it shaking their heads in amazement. Seems he got two technicals in a game in a non-city section tournament. Well, in any high school game, two t's will get a coach ejected. But only in City Section games does this mean that the team also has to leave. Well, Sylmar was losing, and after citing the obscure City Section rule, Escoto yanked his team off the floor during a game with North Hollywood. Puhleeeze. Nice move. Anyway, some of the pundits are picking this team to finish on top of the league. We just don't know. Really.

Poly: Forward Ellis Richardson has been the lone bright spot for the Parrots, who advanced to the 3-A quarterfinals last season after finishing 8-2 in conference play. With four returning starters, Poly is 6-8. Richardson has led the team in scoring in every game. Ellis Richardson helped lead Poly to the 3-A championship game last year despite battling an ankle injury and averaged 18.2 points and seven rebounds

Reseda: We did an early team profile on Reseda and Coach Dave Enowitz, and since then Reseda has improved a whole lot. They were winless a year ago, but Reseda has already won six games with a team made up of mostly sophomores and juniors, but seniors Victor Koopongsakorn and Jaime Gibrian are the most improved.

Van Nuys: We also did a preview of this team in the pre-season, and it's not only gotten worse since then. In fact, this team is just plain awful. The team is now 1-11, and they only won one game last week against a very weak SOCES team, in their own tournament. The team's only bright spot is forward Jesse Keane. Kevin Kannemura is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet, but after losing almost everyone from last year, including George Gurrolla who is now playing at Whittier College, this team is "rebuilding". . . maybe for the year 2000, but they're rebuilding.

So who's gonna win it in the Conference? We'd have to say it's between NoHo and Grant in 4A, and probably Sylmar in 3A. But then we don't think it's going to matter much anyway, but we sure would like to see Arenas and Tony Bland go at it in the playoffs. Too bad David Bluthenthal will be getting in the way if that ever happens, because neither Grant or NoHo have anywhere near the depth of talent over-all, either athletically or size-wise that the other inner-city 4A schools have. It'll be fun watching them try. But first they have to get through league play. Don't miss it.