L.A. WATTS SUMMER GAMES NOTEBOOK : Taft Surprises Coach and Basketball Foes

Jim Woodard, the boys’ basketball coach at Taft High, replies quickly when asked to describe the physical talents of next season’s team.

Taft is “not big and not quick,” he offered. “That’s why we play a zone. We’re too slow and too small to play man to man. A lot of teams would hammer us if we did that.”

But don’t feel too badly for Woodard. Despite their shortcomings, the Toreadors have advanced to the sweet 16 of the L. A. Watts Summer Games tournament, which will conclude this weekend.

Taft beat Pasadena Blair, 69-53, in the first round last Saturday; upset No. 3-seeded Lynwood, 63-56, in a second-round game Sunday; then beat Locke, 40-35, later Sunday.

“(Lynwood) took us very lightly,” Woodard said. “And our offense was their press. They like to press and we did a good job breaking it. We must have had 15 or 20 baskets off layups in that game.”

With only one starter returning from last year’s 15-8 team--and no starter taller than 6-foot-2 1/2--this summer’s Toreador squad is short on experience and height. But Woodard has the team playing beyond its apparent capabilities.

“We played with a lot of intensity over the weekend,” Woodard said. “I was very happy with that.”

Taft will play Dorsey in a fourth-round game Saturday at noon at Jordan High, and if the Toreadors win, they’ll play the winner of the Crenshaw-Dominguez game at 2 p.m.

The semifinals and finals will be held at the North Gym at El Camino College in Torrance on Sunday.

Add Toreadors: Taft might lack height at the moment, but that situation could change if 6-7 sophomore-to-be Johnny Williams continues to improve.

Williams lives in the Fremont High attendance district but attends Taft as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Permits With Transportation program. He never played organized basketball before this spring, but his athleticism and willingness to learn have impressed Woodard.

“He can jump and he has good hands,” Woodard said. “A lot of kids who are that big at that age can’t catch the ball, especially on the run. But he can.”

Williams has also learned not to put the ball on the floor after getting a rebound. If he gets an offensive rebound, Woodard says, he goes right back up with the ball. And if he grabs a defensive rebound, he quickly pivots and hits the outlet man, keeping the ball above his shoulders at all times.

“It sounds simple,” Woodard said. “But I’ve had kids here in the past for three years who never learned that basic rule.”

Muddled tourney: Organizers of the L.A. Watts Summer Games proudly touted the field in the boys’ basketball tournament as 128 teams strong.

But in reality, the figure was 122 as six first-round games were decided by forfeits.

Woodard said that the forfeits might have occurred because the tournament schedules were mailed too late. He received his copy only three days before the tournament began.

In addition, the tournament lacked some basic necessities--like referees.

There was only one referee for Taft’s game against Lynwood, and two Dorsey coaches volunteered to officiate the Toreadors’ game against Locke because there were no referees present.

Double double: Royal won the boys’ volleyball title for the second year in a row, and Highlander setter Travis Ferguson was again named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Ferguson, the son of Royal Coach Bob Ferguson, had 113 assists in the tournament as Royal went undefeated in pool play. The Highlanders beat South Gate (15-2) in the quarterfinals, Lynwood (15-8) in the semifinals, and Long Beach Poly (15-3) in the final at North Torrance High.

“We were kind of out of sync during pool play,” Bob Ferguson said. “This is the first time a lot of these kids have played together. But once we got into the later rounds, we started to get into a rhythm.”

Ferguson was particularly pleased with the play of middle hitters Kerry White and Josh Penrod, who are filling the vacancies left by graduated seniors Kevin Hambly (BYU) and Mark Viala (UC Irvine).

Hambly was an All-Southern Section 3-A Division first-team selection this past season. Fiala was a second-team pick for the Highlanders, who lost to Harvard in the 3-A Division finals.

“(White and Penrod) both played extremely well,” Ferguson said. “They did a great job controlling the middle of the net.”

No biggie: Glenn Gray, the Ventura girls’ basketball coach, isn’t overly excited about the fact the Cougars advanced to the quarterfinals of their tournament. On Saturday, Ventura will play Lynwood, a semifinalist in this year’s Southern Section I-AA Division playoffs.

“I’m happy with the way we’ve played, but it’s hard to tell just how good you are in a tournament like this,” Gray said. “It’s summertime and a lot of the teams are not at full strength because players are either out of town on vacation or they have prior commitments.”

Ventura, the runner-up to Brea Olinda in the Division II-AA playoffs, will be without Denise Rea--one of two returning starters. She will be attending a basketball camp in San Francisco on Saturday.

Tunnel vision: The turmoil surrounding Canyon High football Coach Harry Welch and his one-year suspension by the Southern Section does not appear to have affected the Cowboys’ play in the seven-on-seven passing tournament.

Canyon defeated Irvine University, 20-6, on Saturday, then beat Belmont, 27-20, and Granada Hills, 19-14, in the quarterfinals Sunday.

Canyon will play Beverly Hills in a semifinal at 9 a.m. Sunday, and if the Cowboys win, they’ll play the winner of the Carson-North Torrance game in the championship at 1 p.m. Sunday.