Ex-NBA Player Lifts Niles’ Heavy Heart

Moments after the City Section 3-A Division championship basketball game ended at the Sports Arena last week, Kenyatta Niles of Monroe High sat on his team’s bench, slumped in a chair with a towel draped over his head, which was cradled in his hands.

About 20 feet from him was a celebratory Banning team in a dog pile at midcourt. The picture told the story and Niles was trying desperately to deal with it.

Niles, a 6-foot-4 junior forward, had three chances to tie or beat Banning in the game’s final 25 seconds. He missed two free throws, then missed a three-point basket with four seconds remaining and Banning held on to win, 59-58.

Despite being sick with the flu, Niles scored a team-high 21 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, had eight steals and handed out five assists. He came out for rest only once--for 17 seconds.

The events of the final minute put Niles in a funk, to be sure. Marques Johnson, a close family friend who attended the game, helped bring him out of it.

At halftime, Johnson, a former UCLA All-American (1976-77) and NBA player (‘78-87), encouraged Niles to take control of the team. Be a leader, he told Niles.

Johnson, who coaches a summer team that includes Niles, embraced and consoled Niles afterward. But it was the comforting words Johnson offered Niles by telephone over the weekend that he remembers most.

“He said, ‘If anyone says anything to you at school, just point to your backpack because you put the team on your shoulders and carried them,’ ” Niles said.

VALLEY PAC-8 CONFERENCE

BASKETBALL

Grant’s Rick Forscutt, a 6-foot-6 junior center, set a school record for highest field-goal shooting percentage this season. He was 73 for 107 (68.2%) from the field, beating John Brumwell’s record (117 for 178, 65.7%) set during the 1981-82 season when the Lancers went 20-0 before losing in the second round of the playoffs.

BASEBALL

Patrick Fields, a junior right-hander at North Hollywood, struck out 13 and allowed one hit in nine innings in three opening-round games of the L.A. Invitational.

After giving up an earned run and a hit in one inning against Roosevelt, Fields pitched eight scoreless, hitless innings in his next two appearances. Fields and Mike Delano combined on a no-hitter against Wilson. Two days later, Fields and Rafael Cabrera one-hit Dorsey. Fields struck out seven Dorsey batters in four innings.

MISSION LEAGUE

BASKETBALL

Glen Carson didn’t receive a hero’s welcome upon returning to Notre Dame late Friday night. Not because nobody tried.

Carson scored a team-high 19 points as Notre Dame rolled to a 61-54 victory over San Dimas in the Southern Section Division III-A final at Cal Poly Pomona.

The background: Because it was a special occasion, Carson’s parents rented a limousine and drove with a group of family friends to Pomona. The driver was 30 minutes late picking up the group, which was probably the first sign that something was amiss.

After the game, Carson jumped in the car for the drive home. The mood was jubilant.

The driver, however, was still a bit slow on the uptake. He had been instructed to take the car to Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks, where the Notre Dame campus is located. Thirty minutes into the drive home, somebody in the car rolled down the partition separating the passenger and driver, and noticed a highway sign that read, in essence, “Fontana City Limits.”

The driver thought the group wanted to drive to the city of Riverside. By the time Carson arrived at school, the group of fans that planned to give him a rousing greeting had left.

BASEBALL

Is Carson the next Wally Pipp? Carson, who also plays first base and has signed to play baseball at USC, missed the Knights’ opener Saturday because he was leading Notre Dame to the Division III-A basketball title the night before. His replacement, Chris Crowley, was two for four and drove in two runs. . . .

Outfielder Jeff Farlow was four for four and drove in five runs in Crespi’s two opening victories. In Saturday’s 13-4 victory over Carson, Crespi had four runs saunter across the plate in one inning: three on bases-loaded walks and one on a hit batsmen with the bases loaded.

NORTHWEST VALLEY CONFERENCE

BASEBALL

El Camino Real Coach Mike Maio had a little extra work to do Tuesday. Not only did the school’s baseball diamond need to be chalked before the Conquistadores’ game against Monroe, so did the sideline.

A new national rule requires schools to provide a “designated media area” for photographers shooting baseball games.

Dale Williams, the rules interpreter for the California Interscholastic Federation and an NFL official, said the area must be set aside before the umpires arrive or photographers will be required to shoot the game from outside the field of play.

Williams said the rule was passed to prevent photographers from being injured by line drives. In the past, photographers generally were allowed to roam along the sideline in the field of play. The photographers’ site will be a dead-ball area. . . .

You don’t need a score card to keep track of the action during most Northwest Valley Conference games. Cleveland and Taft unveiled electric scoreboards this season. San Fernando, Chatsworth and El Camino Real also have electric scoreboards. Only conference members Kennedy, Granada Hills and Reseda have the old, hang-the-numbers-by-hand scoreboards. . . .

Can a fast start put the brakes to a team’s offense? At El Camino Real, the answer has been yes and no. The Conquistadores had jumped to a 3-0 start and outscored the opposition, 46-9, before a 7-2 loss to Monroe on Tuesday.

“I wish we could put the runs in the bank,” Maio said, “and take them out when we start playing Kennedy, Granada Hills, Chatsworth. . . . “

The run production has a downside. El Camino Real has perhaps the quickest lineup in the region, and the lopsided nature of the games has eliminated the need for stolen bases. Nonetheless, the team has swiped 16 bases in 18 attempts.

GOLDEN LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Move over Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. A high school launching pad will soon open and balls figure to be clearing its fences in droves.

Highland will play its first season at the school’s new campus baseball field this spring. Considering the altitude--which Coach Mike Van Cheri estimates at 3,000 feet--and the field dimensions--308 feet down the lines and 385 to center--it could prove to be a definite hitter’s park.

Under certain conditions, games in the Antelope Valley have had run totals that approximated football scores, particularly when the wind blows. And guess what? “The wind blows out to right,” Van Cheri said.

TRI-VALLEY LEAGUE

GOLF

From the school whose best player a year ago was an exchange student from Sweden comes a golfer from the land of the crooked stick. Canada is best known for producing hockey prospects, but foreign-exchange student Yannick Bibeau of Quebec has proved to be Moorpark’s best golfer.

Moorpark’s best player in 1992 was Fredrick Appel, an exchange student from Sweden who now attends Ventura College. Both players currently live with the Joe Ritz family of Moorpark.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Note to Crescenta Valley Coach Tony Zarrillo: Keep out of Long Beach. The Falcon football and basketball seasons both ended there.

The football team lost to Los Alamitos in the Southern Section Division II semifinals at Veterans Stadium.

The basketball team lost to Dominguez in the semifinals of the Division II-AA playoffs at Cal State Long Beach. . . .

The Falcons, who had no triples last season, got triples from Marty Lane and David Fielder in the first inning of their opener against La Canada.

The Falcons had 10 consecutive hits in the first inning of the second game of the doubleheader. Crescenta Valley had 33 hits in the two games.

DEL REY LEAGUE

FOOTBALL

Bill Redell expects to add three former area football players to his staff at St. Francis. Jim Bonds, a former Hart quarterback who played at UCLA and later was a Hart assistant; Mike Kane, a former Cal State Northridge and St. Francis running back, and Chuck Arobio, an All-Pacific Conference 10 lineman at USC in 1965 and former member of the Minnesota Vikings, will be assistants, Redell said.

MARMONTE LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Channel Islands and Thousand Oaks will show off spruced-up baseball fields this season after thousands of dollars worth of improvements were made during the off-season.

Among the renovations at Channel Islands are new outfield fences with display advertisements, a leveled and sodded infield and enclosed dugouts for the first time since the school opened in 1966.

In addition, the outfield fence was moved back, adding about five feet down each line and 10 feet in the alleys.

At Thousand Oaks, a warning track was installed, the outfield was leveled and the infield was leveled and seeded.

FRONTIER LEAGUE

BASEBALL

Nordhoff Coach Steve Blundell is still waiting for a league win.

Blundell, entering his third season at the Rangers’ controls, is 0-24 in league play.

Nordhoff did show improvement last season, winning one game (1-22). The Rangers were 0-22 in Blundell’s rookie season.

The Rangers were 7-14, 2-8 in the Frontier League in 1990. Despite the dismal record, Blundell is upbeat.

“The kids are working hard and learning, that’s the most important thing,” he said. “That’s all I ask for.”

Staff writers Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, Vince Kowalick and Paige A. Leech contributed to this notebook.

Regional Baseball

Top 10 Selected by sportswriters of The Times

Lst. Rk Wk Team League Record 1 1 Simi Valley Marmonte 3-0 2 2 Notre Dame Mission 3-0 3 3 Crespi Mission 3-0 4 4 Kennedy N. Valley 3-0 5 6 Hart Foothill 2-0 6 7 El Camino Real N. Valley 3-1 7 9 Sylmar East Valley 2-1 8 10 Crescenta Valley Pacific 2-0 9 5 Monroe Mid-Valley 2-1 10 NR Taft West Valley 3-0

NR--Not ranked.