Making Most of Chances

From the Olympic Games to the Little League World Series, the sporting events of 1996 were brought to life with help from Valley and Ventura County newsmakers.

From sprawling Cal State Northridge to tiny St. Bonaventure High, schools in the region made headlines.

From two brothers making a splash in Ventura, to a Czechoslovakian tennis player in Oxnard, to a tireless runner in Thousand Oaks, to a coveted baseball player in Reseda, to a money-making golfer from Sherman Oaks, to a blazing pitching tandem in Granada Hills, to a mercurial football player in Lancaster, talented folks made for interesting reading.

Let’s dial up their accomplishments, person-to-person:

Twenty-seven athletes from the region competed in 13 of the 29 sports at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

A name leaping from obscurity to household status was that of 21-year-old Justin Huish, a sharp-eyed archer from Simi Valley. With his hair in a pony tail and a laid-back approach, Huish had a single thought upon having a gold medal draped around his neck.: “Gosh, this thing is heavy.”

Huish scored 112 of a possible 120 points in three consecutive rounds at the Stone Mountain Park archery complex to win the gold.

Sheila Cornell, a 34-year-old softball player from Taft High, was a premier slugger on the U.S. softball team that stormed to the gold medal. Cornell hit a two-run home run to send Team USA into the medal round. Kim Maher of Ventura also was instrumental in the team’s success.

Casting long shadows over basketball season were the talents of Harvard-Westlake High twins Jason and Jarron Collins, and Simi Valley High center Pero Vasiljevic.

The Collinses, both about 6 feet 10, led the Wolverines to the state championship by combining for 32.5 points and 21.0 rebounds a game. Jason was chosen The Times’ Valley player of the year.

After an intense recruiting battle from a number of top colleges, last month they chose to attend Stanford. The Collinses attended the dinner that resulted in an NCAA violation and the firing of Bruin Coach Jim Harrick, but were accused of no wrongdoing.

The presence of Vasiljevic, a 6-10 exchange student from Adelaide, Australia, at Simi Valley drew protests from Marmonte League rivals, who pointed out that Simi Valley Coach Dean Bradshaw is a friend of Mike Dunlap, coach of the professional team in Adelaide. Vasiljevic, coaches said, was not “randomly placed” at a high school as stipulated by CIF rules.

The addition worked better for Vasiljevic than for Simi Valley. The team finished fourth in the league, but Vasiljevic was chosen Times’ Ventura County player of the year after averaging 24.6 points and 11.6 rebounds, and accepted a scholarship from Kansas State.

Girls’ basketball once again was dominated by Buena, which posted a 30-2 record under Coach Joe Vaughan, who along the way notched his 500th career victory and is 506-22 in 21 seasons. Buena center Nicole Greathouse, a junior, was selected The Times’ Ventura County player of the year.

Baseball season finished with Cleveland High infielder Junior Brignac turning down a football scholarship to Washington and accepting a $415,000 bonus to sign with the Atlanta Braves after being drafted in the third round.

Dan Cey, a shortstop from Cal who played at El Camino Real High, also was a third-round pick. Cey, son of former Dodger third baseman Ron Cey, signed with the Minnesota Twins for a six-figure bonus.

Robert Fick, Cal State Northridge’s All-American catcher and a fifth-round pick of the Detroit Tigers, also got a six-figure bonus.

Also drafted from Northridge were third baseman-catcher Eric Gillespie (10th round, Angels), right-handed pitcher Robert Crabtree (21st round, San Francisco Giants) and left-handed pitcher Nathan Rice (23rd round, St. Louis Cardinals). All but Rice signed.

Under first-year Coach Mike Batesole, the Matadors led the nation with 52 victories and advanced to the West Regional final.

The Matador offense was built around Fick, who batted .420 with 26 home runs and 96 runs batted in, Gillespie, who hit 23 homers, and shortstop Adam Kennedy, who led the nation with 121 hits.

Jon Garland gave a preview of why he is the region’s top pro prospect for 1997 by pitching a one-hitter and two-hitter to lead Kennedy High to the City Section 4-A final at Dodger Stadium. Teammate Derek Morse, who has moved on to Cal State Northridge, was 15-1 and capped the season by pitching the Golden Cougars to a 5-4 victory over Poly in the City final.

Two Little League teams also became champions. The Moorpark 12-year-olds advanced to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., behind 5-9 Eric Johnson, who batted better than .600 and pitched well. The Thousand Oaks 15-year-olds won the national championship behind shortstop Kevin Howard, a three-sport athlete from Westlake High.

Vicky McKay pitched 61 innings in all-star play to lead Antelope Valley to the Big League softball World Series championship in Kalamazoo, Mich. McKay pitched a four-hitter in the final, a 2-0 victory over Williamsport, Pa.

Justin and Troy Dumais of Buena High reigned in diving. Troy, a junior, won a national championship and finished third in the Olympic Trials, just missing a berth on the team. Justin, a senior who will attend USC, set a Southern Section record for points.

More water works involved Alfonso Tucay of Burroughs, who scored 17 points in a water polo match against Bosco Tech, the sixth-highest total in a Southern Section game and most since Jack Kocur of Royal scored 19 in 1992.

Paul Stankowski, a Hueneme High graduate, and Emilee Klein, a Notre Dame High graduate, burst into the professional golf spotlight.

Stankowski earned more than $900,000 and won championships of The BellSouth Classic in Marrietta, Ga., and the Kapalua Invitational in Maui. Stankowski, 27, also was the last player to earn an invitation to the Masters.

Klein won back-to-back LPGA tournaments in only her second season on the tour. Klein finished ninth on the money list with $463,793 in earnings.

Three male golfers were noteworthy as well. David Berganio of Sylmar, an Alemany High graduate, finished in the top 10 of the Nike Tour and earned an automatic exemption for the 1997 PGA Tour. Tim Hogarth of Van Nuys won the U.S. Public Links championship in Hawaii and recent Pepperdine graduate Kevin Marsh won the Southern California Amateur.

One of the biggest headlines of the year was achieved by Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks High, who was chosen national girls’ athlete of the year by Track & Field News magazine.

Mortensen set a national high school record with a time of 9:48.59 in the 3,200-meter run and also won state championships in the 3,200 and 1,600.

Amy Skieresz, a 1995 graduate of Agoura High, capped an undefeated season for Arizona with a 16-second victory in the NCAA cross-country championships. Skieresz is the first runner from the region to win the Division I title.

Eleazar Hernandez of Moorpark College and Marisol Barajas of Mission College won the men’s and women’s state cross-country titles.

Hernandez clocked 20:11 over the four-mile course at Woodward Park in Fresno to finish ahead of Ventura’s Miguel Galindo and Mission’s Ricardo Valenzuela. Barajas won with a time of 18:29 over 5,000 meters.

Mike and Bob Bryan of Camarillo capped their junior tennis careers by winning both the U.S. Tennis Assn. National 18-and-under doubles championship and the USTA National Clay Court doubles title for the second consecutive year. The twins graduated from Rio Mesa High and attend Stanford.

Another tennis player from Rio Mesa, Czech exchange student Zuzana Stunova, went undefeated through the high school season and successfully defended her Southern Section singles crown, becoming the sixth player to do so and the first since 1988-89.

The combination of quarterback Aaron Flowers to receiver David Romines was among the best in Division I-A, and the pair led Northridge to a 7-4 record in its first season at that level.

Flowers, a junior from Valley College, completed 247 of 415 passes for 3,540 yards and 30 touchdowns, and Romines, a senior from Simi Valley High, had 87 receptions for 1,300 yards.

The return of receiver Leodes Van Buren after legal problems kept him off the field for two seasons helped Moorpark College to an 8-4 record.

Van Buren had 26 catches, a far cry from the state record 269 catches he had from 1990 to 1993 at Newbury Park High, but with another strong season at Moorpark he could regain the Division I scholarship he lost out of high school.

Pass-happy Valley College unveiled running back Marcus Harvey, who became the school’s all-time leading rusher in leading the Monarchs to a 10-1 record.

Joe Borchard emerged as perhaps the best among a talented group of area high school quarterbacks, leading Camarillo to the Southern Section Division III championship.

Chris Czernek of Newbury Park became the first player in the nation to pass for more than 4,000 yards in two seasons, and finished high on Southern Section lists for career yardage, completions and touchdowns.

In the City Section, converted receiver Nick DiPadova passed for 2,726 yards and 31 touchdowns, and rushed for 19 touchdowns to lead Taft to the City Section 4-A final.

Tiny Pepe Villasenor of Division X champion St. Bonaventure set a Southern Section record with 111 receptions. The 5-7 senior’s quarterback and childhood friend, Teohua Sanchez, completed 69.0% of his passes for 3,027 yards with only six interceptions.

Justin Fargas of Notre Dame rushed for 2,945 yards, nearly 1,000 yards more than his nearest area competitor, and had 10 games with more than 200 yards.

Safety Tony Walker of Antelope Valley, perhaps the best all-round player in the region, and 6-5, 238-pound outside linebacker Ryan Nielsen of Royal, who had 19 sacks, were the defensive players gaining the most attention from recruiters.

They all put their stamp on the 1996 Valley yearbook.