PREP REVIEW : Filling the Bill: Parent Picks up Balance of Servite’s Playoff Tab

Servite High School made an improbable run through the 1990 boys’ basketball playoffs. After finishing the regular season 13-10, the Friars won eight of nine games in the Southern Section and state playoffs, including a 67-51 victory over Hayward Mt. Eden to win the State Division III championship at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

Their reward? Well, to the victors go the bills.

The two-week spree in the state playoffs left the school with a debt of $5,583.56.

The California Interscholastic Federation is expected to reimburse the school $2,361, about half the amount, and the parents of the Servite players donated $80 each to send their kids to Oakland.

But that still left the school with a deficit of $1,839, a debt Athletic Director Tom Vitello figured the school would have to absorb.

But the day before the Friars left for Oakland, Vitello received a call from a parent of a Servite student. The parent offered to cover expenses up to $3,000.

“He wanted to make sure that everyone was going to be able to go to Oakland,” Vitello said. “When I told him what we would probably lose, he said he would take care of it.”

Vitello said the parent, who asked to remain anonymous, didn’t have a son on the basketball team. His son was a football player.

“The guy said his son is really happy at the school,” Vitello said. “He felt the state title game was tremendous for the kids and didn’t want to see any one of them miss out on that experience. He was a true blessing.”

Get in line: Mater Dei officials were unhappy with the limited number of tickets for the state championship game, so they took matters into their own hands.

Football Coach Bruce Rollinson flew to Oakland the Monday before the game with orders to buy $6,000 worth of tickets.

“The CIF gave us 362 tickets and those were sold out in an hour,” said Athletic Director Gary McKnight, who also is the basketball coach. “If we wanted more tickets, we had to order them through (a ticket agency) and they have a $1 charge per ticket. Even then, it would be on stand-by and we couldn’t pick up the tickets until we got to Oakland.”

McKnight said the Monarchs had the same problem when they played in the 1987 state championship game. He said the Mater Dei fans had poor seats.

So Rollinson was dispatched.

“We weren’t worried about Bruce having all that money,” McKnight said. “We knew where he worked.”

Even more money: The CIF announced this week that Reebok has extended its sponsorship of the California state championships. With the extension, Reebok will pay $1.5 million in addition to the previous $1 million grant for sponsoring the games.

The contract runs through 1993.

Summer breeze: Summer Silva, outfielder for Whittier Christian’s softball team, hit for the cycle last week in a game against Brethren.

Silva, a sophomore, was five for five, with two singles, a double, a triple and a home run. She also had five runs batted in.

Her performance helped Whittier Christian defeat Brethren, 18-11.

“I have never heard of anyone hitting for the cycle in a high school softball game before,” Whittier Christian Coach Bill Pate said. “You don’t see a lot of five-hit games in softball, let alone someone hitting for the cycle.”

But Silva, a transfer from Troy, has been on a hot streak lately. In her last 11 at-bats, she has 10 hits, including seven singles, and six stolen bases.

“She’s very fast and I think that helped her hit for the cycle,” Pate said. “We don’t have any fences, so getting the home run was tough.

“She had to really fly.”

Burnout: While Silva was pounding Brethren’s pitchers, Whittier Christian’s pitching staff was having its own problems.

It seems that Veronica Martinez, the Heralds’ ace, and another pitcher had gone to the beach the previous day. Both came back with sunburn.

As a result, they walked 16 batters and hit another as Brethren scored 11 runs on one hit.

Finally, Pate brought in third baseman Jennifer Pittman to put out the fire. Pittman, a seldom-used pitcher, went five perfect innings, striking out five, for the victory.

Cross-country changes: A proposal to reorganize the Southern Section cross-country divisions will be voted on April 26. The plan would align the section with the state divisions.

Under the proposal, enrollment will determine what division a school competes in. Southern Section officials hope this will make section teams more competitive in state meets.

More changes: Southern Section officials will propose in April to change the criteria for qualifying for the basketball playoffs.

Dean Crowley, associate commissioner of athletics, said the process for selecting at-large teams has to be changed. In general, Crowley and others want to do away with one of the categories in the power-point system.

This season, teams were awarded one point for playing a team in a higher division. That category helped La Quinta (2-20), Costa Mesa (2-19) and Santa Paula (2-19) get into the playoffs, while Loara (15-7) was snubbed.

“There was definitely a flaw in our process,” Crowley said. “A team like Laguna Beach, which is in a lower division, could win zero games but accumulate a ton of points. That has to be changed.”

Under the new proposal, teams would get a point for a victory over:

--a team in a higher division;

--a league champion or co-champion;

--a team that won a tournament championship before league play;

--a victory over a team that was ranked in the Southern Section top 10 the last week of the season.

“In other words, it will be what you do on the court and not who you schedule,” Crowley said.

Swim milestone: Sonora High will hold its 25th annual swim meet this weekend. The meet features Brea-Olinda, Buena Park, Claremont, Downey, Esperanza, Fullerton, Pioneer, Rosary, San Marino, Santa Margarita, Sonora and Westminster. The preliminaries will be on Saturday and the finals next Monday.

Signings: John Kochendorfer of Dana Hills, an All-South Coast League selection on the defensive line, said he will attend Navy in the fall.

Kochendorfer, 6 feet 4 and 225 pounds, visited Army, Colorado State and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He was also recruited by Colorado and California.

Kochendorfer was honored last winter as a National Football Foundation scholar-athlete. He has a 4.03 grade-point average and plans to major in engineering. He also earned two varsity letters in basketball.

David Guillen of Capistrano Valley has signed a letter of intent to play baseball at Santa Clara University. Guillen, an outfielder, batted .308 last season with six home runs.

Margot Neville of Edison has signed a letter of intent to play volleyball at Auburn University. Neville, a three-year starter for the Chargers, was a Sunset League co-player of the year last season.