The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Wald leads Mustangs to title Girls win three straight at Del Mar By DICK SPARRER It's going to be tough to select a most valuable player on the Homestead girls basketball team when the time comes later this season. Every night it seems to be someone different stepping up for the Mustangs--Julie Speckels, Michelle Wald, Vickie Chiang, Shelly Mellberg, even sophomore Julia Randall. So picking an mvp may be tough. But it didn't seem to be such a tough choice for the members of the all-tournament team committee at the Del Mar Tournament last week--they went with Wald. Wald, a 5-foot-9 senior guard who is a returning all-leaguer for the Mustangs this winter, led Homestead to the team championship at Del Mar. The Mustangs whipped Westmont 49-41, handled Wilcox 42-26 and beat El Camino 63-43 in the tournament championship game. Wald was joined on the all-tournament team by Speckels and Randall, who took turns as scoring leaders in two of the three games. Randall and Wald topped all Homestead scorers in the championship game against El Camino. Randall buried eight shots to finish with a team-high 16 points and Wald supported with 11 points for the Mustangs. Speckels and Chiang added seven points apiece, Tanya Green and Marie Levey hit six each, Nadja Fabian and Chris Strombel both had four, and Mellberg added two. Speckels canned a three-pointer. The Mustangs outscored El Camino in every period on the road to the convincing 20-point victory. Homestead, now 12-1, opened the tournament with its toughest game, a 49-41 win over Westmont. Mellberg led the Mustangs with 11 points, including a three. Strombel had eight points, Wald seven, Chiang and Levey six apiece, Randall four, Speckels a three-pointer and Fabian two. Speckels was the scoring leader a game later in the lopsided 42-26 win over Wilcox. The 5-foot-8 senior guard finished with nine points, including a three. Chiang and Fabian finished with eight points apiece, Levey six, Wald four, Randall three and Strombel and Mellberg two each. The Mustangs will now take their impressive nonleague record into action in the De Anza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League this week. Homestead visits Santa Clara on Jan. 6, 7 p.m., before hosting Monta Vista on Jan. 8, 5 p.m. Firebirds fall The Fremont girls, meanwhile, dropped a 41-30 nonleague decision to Pioneer last week. Shade Akanbi, Valerie Lund and Daynelle Parker dropped seven points each to share game-high honors for the Firebirds. Monique Gammon added five points, and Sammy Hess and Josie Wells added two points apiece. Fremont trailed by just one after a period, 10-9, and remained just a point back at the half, 18-17. But Pioneer outscored the Firebirds 11-6 in the third and 12-7 in the fourth to win by 11. The Lady Birds will now move into league play this week in the De Anza Division. Fremont visits Palo Alto on Jan. 6, 7 p.m., before hosting St. Francis on Jan. 8, 7:30 p.m. King's girls win Michelle Smith and Jessica Fleming scored in double figures in back-to-back games to lead the King's Academy girls basketball team to the consolation championship in the Redwood Christian Tournament. Smith poured in 19 points and Fleming added 13 in a 58-44 win over St. Elizabeth's in the consolation title game. A game earlier, Fleming led the Knights with 14 points, and Smith had 11 in a 65-53 win over Tomales. Overfelt Classic Both the Homestead and Fremont boys basketball teams lost in the first round of the Overfelt Holiday Classic last week. The Mustangs fell 61-51 to Mt. Pleasant in first-round action, and Fremont lost 59-51 to Yerba Buena. Reynold Carlos poured in 20 points and Cameron McNeil tossed in 14, but the Firebirds lost by eight to Yerba Buena. Carlos had five field goals to go with 10 free throws, and McNeil had three three-pointers among his five buckets. Jacab Esau joined the two in double digits with 10 points. Glenn Marasigan added five for the Firebirds, and Marcus Porter had two. The Warriors led by seven after a period, by 11 at the half and by 15 heading into the fourth. But Fremont outscored YB 21-14 in the final quarter to make a game of it. Homestead, meanwhile, was outscored in every period but the third in its loss to Mt. Pleasant the same night. Max McKay and A.J. Peper buried 11 points apiece, and Steve Lambert canned 10 to lead all Homestead scorers in the loss to the Cardinals. Keith Morikawa tossed in a pair of threes to finish with six points for the Mustangs; Dat Lai and Matt Root had five points apiece, and Matt Hoffman hit three. Lai dropped a three-pointer. Knights nail second The King's Academy boys finished second in their own tournament, winning twice before losing in the finals of the King's Academy NorCal Challenge. The Knights opened with a 56-50 win over Urban of San Francisco, then beat Crystal Springs Upland 58-29 to earn a place in the finals. King's lost a tough 57-55 decision to Redwood Christian in the tourney championship game. Nate Morrow bombed 16 points, and Ryan Hazley supported with 14, but the Knights lost by a bucket to Redwood in the tourney title game. Ben Jones pitched in with nine points, including a three-pointer, and Dan Leong and James Terada added eight points apiece. Terada also dropped a three. The Knights led by five after a period, 13-8, and were still up by four at the half, 29-25. But Redwood knotted the score at 43-43 by the end of the third, then outscored King's 14-12 in the fourth to win by two points. The Knights, now 6-6 for the year, had crushed Crystal Springs 58-29 in the semifinals. Morrow led a balanced scoring attack with 11 points for the Knights. The 6-foot-1 senior had a three among his five field goals. Dan Friske had nine points in the win and Hazley, Terada and Tony Castillo added eight points each. Hazley popped a three. Leong, Steve Vanderet and Jones added four points each in the win, and Jarod Monroe had two. Jones tossed in seven buckets, including a pair of threes, to finish with 16 points in King's 56-50 win over Urban of SF to open the tournament. Morrow supported with nine points, Leong had eight, Hazley seven, Friske and Monroe five apiece and Terada four. Hazley added a three. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 6, 1999. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.