Camino

Kevin Williams had been an assistant football coach at Granada Hills Kennedy happily toiling around behind the scenes for 11 years when he was plucked from obscurity in 2007 to become coach at Woodland Hills El Camino Real, known for its powerful baseball program and underachieving football teams. "The program was in disarray," Williams said. "The principal is a man that I've known for many years. . . . He really had to do a selling job on me because I was happy at Kennedy, and I didn't want to be a head coach at the time.

Since 2000, every City Section Division I boys' basketball championship has been won by Westchester (nine), Taft (four) or Fairfax (one). El Camino Real desperately wants to join the elite club. On Saturday night in a semifinal playoff game, the senior-dominated Conquistadores came through in the fourth quarter in a 51-41 victory over Fairfax at L.A. Southwest College, giving them another chance to make it happen. The lead was two points going into the final quarter, but that's when point guard Maleke Haynes contributed eight of his 16 points.

The experimenting is over for Los Angeles City Section baseball teams. On Tuesday, league play finally began, and it was an immediate chance to see which West Valley League teams got the message that there would be no more fooling around if the ambition to topple nine-time City champion Chatsworth is going to reach fruition. Woodland Hills El Camino Real (6-8), after strugging in the opening month of the season, had its serious game face on and turned the ball over to All-City right-hander Jose Cardona, who delivered a masterpiece in a 9-0 victory over Woodland Hills Taft.

The City Section Division I boys' basketball pairings released Saturday produced no surprises. Defending champion Westchester (25-5) was seeded No. 1 and last season's runner-up, Woodland Hills El Camino Real (21-6), was seeded No. 2. Those two schools are heavily favored to reach the championship game set for March 8 at Los Angeles Southwest College. Westchester is bidding for its 13th City championship under Coach Ed Azzam. The Comets have been led by 6-foot-4 senior Elijah Stewart, a Loyola Marymount signee.

You'd think that with a 4.2 grade-point average, junior Steven Karkenny of Chatsworth might offer a quote from Edgar Allan Poe or Henry David Thoreau in explaining the lesson learned from not having a particularly productive game two days ago against rival Woodland Hills El Camino Real. Nope — he offered these words of wisdom from Rocky Balboa: "It's not how hard you can hit. It's how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." Chatsworth Coach Tom Meusborn called in his closer, Karkenny, with two outs in the fifth inning Thursday, and he shut down El Camino Real the rest of the way, throwing 2 1/3 innings of shutout relief in the Chancellors' 2-1 victory.

It happened so fast on a cloudless, picturesque Saturday afternoon at Dodger Stadium that Justin Scovel thought he was dreaming. With two out and a 3-and-2 count in the bottom of the seventh inning of the City Section Division I championship game, the Woodland Hills El Camino Real senior hit a score-tying triple. Then he raced home to score the winning run after a passed ball and was mobbed in a dog pile behind home plate to conclude a wild 9-8 victory over San Pedro. His coach, Josh Lienhard, was breathless.

HIGHLIGHTS: El Camino Real streaked to an 18-6 lead in the opening quarter on its way to a season-opening victory. . . . Voviette Morgan (ECR) scored six points and grabbed seven rebounds in the first eight minutes. . . . All-City senior forward Michelle Kirby (ECR) also scored six in the first quarter on the way to a game-high 21 points. SCORING LEADERS: Michelle Kirby (ECR) 21; Voviette Morgan (ECR) 14; Shagarro Lattin (B) 12.

Going into the semifinal round of the L.A. City 4-A softball playoffs, Banning High had lost only two games in a 23-game season. The Pilots had lost to San Pedro and El Camino Real, two of the section's top-rated teams. They got a second chance Wednesday against El Camino Real at South Gate Park in a game that would send the winner into the city final. But again the result was the same as El Camino Real ended Banning's season with a 2-1 victory in 11 innings. El Camino Real will face San Pedro--a winner over San Fernando in the other semifinal--for the title Wednesday.

Over the last 37 seasons, San Fernando Valley teams have won every City Section Division I baseball championship except one. In 1992, San Pedro won the championship, and the Pirates (24-5) will try again to break up the Valley domination when facing Woodland Hills El Camino Real (18-11) in Saturday's 1 p.m. final at Dodger Stadium. The home-run ball has been critical in San Pedro's playoff success. It was Ronnie Galosic's three-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth that enabled the Pirates to beat San Fernando, 10-9, in their playoff opener.

I recently returned from Spain after having walked about the last 100 miles of the Camino de Santiago with Fresco Tours. I have traveled with many fine tour groups, so I can say that Fresco Tours is one of the best. Led by owner/tour guide Alex Chang, we were guided on the beautiful walk while being wined, dined and lodged in restored private medieval homes and rectories. If you want to walk the Camino knowing where you will eat and sleep every night, with the benefits that an organized small-group tour has to offer, Fresco will not disappoint.

The school motto Veritas Vincit translates as "truth conquers" and in the case of John Marshall High School, so do wits. The Los Angeles Unified School District named the nine-member team this year's winner of its annual Academic Decathlon on Friday at an awards ceremony at Hollywood High School. The win  advances the team  - national champion in 1995 - to the statewide competition scheduled for late March in Sacramento alongside previous national and state champions Granada Hills Charter and El Camino Real Charter.

 The El Camino Real girls' soccer team will have three players sign on Wednesday. They are Peyton Cline (Fresno State), Leslie Ramirez (Georgia State) and Madison Lipton (Rider). Coach Eric Choi has sent 18 players to colleges since becoming head coach in 2006-07.   Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

El Camino Real Charter High School won the Los Angeles Unified School District's “Super Quiz” competition Saturday, beating 58 other high school teams in the Academic Decathlon's final event. The Marshall High School team took second place and the reigning national, state and LAUSD decathlon champion, Granada Hills Charter High School, placed third. The El Camino charter team scored 63 out of a possible 72 points in the game show-style contest, in which students have seven seconds to answer multiple-choice questions on a variety of subjects.

 San Fernando might have some competition this spring for the City Section Division I baseball championship, and the prime challenger could be Woodland Hills El Camino Real. In the JSerra tournament on Saturday, El Camino Real more than held its own against two Southern Section powers, losing to Santa Margarita, 7-6, and beating Capistrano Valley, 6-5. Most impressively is that sophomore left-hander Jeremy Polon, who is moving up from junior varsity and was a standout over the summer, continued his strong form, throwing three shutout innings.

 Santa Clara-bound Evan Wardlow was named MVP in helping El Camino Real defeat Prestonwood Christian, 63-58, in the championship game of the National Prep Classic in Santa Maria. He had 18 points. Julian Richardson led the Conquistadores with 21 points.   Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

 Woodland Hills El Camino Real is hosting a one-day showcase on Saturday, and the featured game matches the host Conquistadores against L.A. Windard at 7:30 p.m. Other games: Rancho Cuamongs vs. Renaissance, 1 p.m.; Los Osos vs. La Canada, 2:30 p.m.; Flintridge Prep vs. Viewpoint, 4 p.m.; Oaks Christian vs. Chaminade (girls), 5:30 p.m.   Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

Tickets are on sale for the Camino Real Playhouse's "The Magic of Christmas," which opens Friday. The show includes three one-act plays with Christmas themes and holiday music. Performances will run for three weekends at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, at 31776 El Camino Real. Tickets are $10 per person and $25 per family. Information: (949) 489-8082.

I want to inform your readers about what actually took place regarding a request to use Clinicas del Camino Real Inc. property for a temporary tent for the homeless. My initial conversation with Carol Roberg, executive director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission, was one of concern and compassion for her agency and the people it serves. I expressed to her my will to be of help but that I was under a time deadline and legal responsibility to begin construction on land that is designated to serve as a parking lot. This is not a self-imposed obligation but rather a condition of the construction and use permit that we obtained by the city of Oxnard.

 Wissah Miran, a foreign-exchange student from Germany, won the City Section girls' tennis title on Friday, defeating top-seeded Diana Silvers of Palisades, 6-2, 6-2. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

 The trick play pulled off by the Woodland Hills El Camino Real junior varsity football team last week against Reseda Cleveland has hooked its audience on the web and on television. The YouTube video has surpassed 2.2 million views. The video has been shown on ESPN's SportsCenter, the Jimmy Kimmel Show and Fred Roggin's The Challenge, among others. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com