Don’t Ask Why When It Comes to Y2K News

Determining which athletic achievements or sports stories deserve mention in a yearly review is strictly subjective.

What some believe is worthy of mention, others might dismiss. What some consider significant, others view with far less enthusiasm.

Throw into that mix the constraints of newspaper space and making the final cut in an account of the year’s top stories becomes much more difficult.

So, with that disclaimer, here are some of the events and protagonists that made headlines in the region in Y2K:

Perhaps it wasn’t what women’s libber Gloria Steinem had in mind when she torched her Playboy Bunny suit, but the first Thousand Oaks High girls’ wrestling tournament got off the mat in January with 79 participants in 12 weight classes.

Later in the month, All-American guard Edniesha Curry of the Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team tried to put her own submission hold on the Matadors, walking out on the team over disagreements with the coaching staff.

Without Curry, the Matadors failed to reach the NCAA women’s tournament, as they had the previous season.

But there was March Madness in Malibu when Pepperdine whipped Indiana, 77-57, in an East Regional first-round game of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

It would be Coach/Sir/Mr. Bobby Knight’s farewell game with the Hoosiers. He was fired by the school on Sept. 10.

There was March Madness, too, in Stockton when the Ventura women’s basketball team won the state title, finishing 38-0 and becoming the first women’s program to win two championships undefeated.

In May, Littlerock High football players Marcus Raines, Richard Newton and Rodney Woods were charged with murder and assault in the beating death of an 18-year-old man at a party.

The three also were charged with beating a 22-year-old man moments after the first attack.

Under an agreement with prosecutors, Newton pleaded no contest this month to involuntary manslaughter in the killing of Christopher O’Leary and Woods pleaded no contest to assault against Kevin Walker.

Murder charges were filed originally against Newton and Woods, but Deputy Dist. Atty. John Portillo said the charges will likely be dismissed when the two are sentenced on the lesser charges in January.

Raines is charged with murder and assault in O’Leary’s death and is awaiting a preliminary hearing.

In June, Anita Siraki of Hoover capped her junior track season by winning the girls’ 3,200-meter state title and the two-mile in the Scholastic Outdoor championships. Siraki was the top-ranked high school runner in the nation in the 3,200.

This fall, Siraki claimed her second consecutive Division I cross-country state title. She placed second, one second behind winner Sara Bei of Santa Rosa Montgomery, in the national championships on Dec. 9 at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

As the high school baseball season wound down in May and June, Kennedy picked up steam after a lackluster start and took home the City championship with a 4-2 victory over El Camino Real in the final at Dodger Stadium on June 6.

The day before the game, players on both teams and around the nation kept an ear out for the phone, just in case they received a call from a major-league team during the amateur draft.

The loudest ring in the region was heard at Matt Harrington’s home when the Colorado Rockies selected the Palmdale right-hander with the seventh pick overall.

Everyone figured Harrington would be uncorking his 97-mph fastball soon after in some minor-league outpost. Everyone figured wrong.

Harrington turned down a $4-million signing bonus and signed to play with the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, presumably to pass the time while waiting for the next draft and a more lucrative offer.

As summer heated up, attention turned to the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, later proclaimed by International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch as the best ever despite the dancing drag queens in the closing ceremonies.

The dazzling track and field competition at the Games featured Marion Jones, the former Rio Mesa and Thousand Oaks student, who left with as many medals as Georgia Frontiere has wedding rings.

Jones won gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600 relay, and bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.

At the pool, Lenny Krayzelburg of Studio City and Anthony Ervin of Valencia captured their bit of glory.

Krayzelburg, a native of Ukraine, won the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes and was part of the U.S. team that set a world record in winning the 400 medley relay. He set an Olympic record of 53.72 in the 100.

Ervin tied teammate Gary Hall Jr. for gold in the 50 freestyle and won a silver medal with the U.S. 400 free relay team.

Shortstop Crystl Bustos, who at Canyon High in the early 1990s showed she was destined for softball prominence, helped the U.S. win the gold medal after the team sputtered in pool play and began making excuses. First baseman and Taft graduate Sheila Cornell Douty also played for the red, whine and blue.

While America watched the events down under four days after the fact on NBC--or was that the Pony Express?--Tyler Ebell of Ventura was off and running to a remarkable football season.

Ebell, 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, finished with 4,494 yards rushing and 64 touchdowns, both national season records. The UCLA-bound senior set state career records with 7,384 yards rushing and 111 touchdowns. He carried Ventura to the Southern Section Division IV championship.

Over to the east, quarterback Kyle Matter and Hart grabbed some of the limelight away from Ebell.

Behind Matter, who is headed for Stanford, the Indians cruised to the Division III championship, their third consecutive title and fourth in six years. Matter’s 7,528 yards passing and 81 touchdowns are school career records.

With football done, basketball took center stage and no men’s team has made a bigger impact this season than Northridge.

The Matadors gave every member of the Dump Steve Lavin Club an early Christmas present on Nov. 21 with a 78-74 shocker over ranked UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, where the Bruins once won 98 consecutive games under a guy whose head wasn’t rammed by the Exxon Valdez.

It was Northridge’s biggest victory ever.