El Camino

Orange Coast College and El Camino officially accepted bids to play in the Orange County Bowl, committee member Bill Otta said Sunday. El Camino (8-2) won the Northern Division and OCC (8-2) the Central Division of the Mission Conference. The game will be Dec. 1 at Orange Coast, but the time won't be decided until today. This is the first bowl appearance for OCC since 1975, when the Pirates defeated Rio Hondo in the Avocado Bowl. It will be the fourth consecutive bowl appearance for El Camino.

Joe Manzo had 19 kills and middle blocker Darin Hansen had 11 blocks as Pierce College defeated El Camino, 15-6, 15-9, 15-9, in a Western State Conference men's volleyball match Wednesday at Pierce.

El Camino College could have stayed home and cruised through its first-round playoff game against a 16-15 Riverside team. Instead, a last-minute change in the seedings made 23rd-seeded El Camino (21-10) have to play its game of the season to post an 81-79 upset of 10th-seeded Santa Monica (26-9) in front of a small but rowdy Westside crowd. "We finally beat another quality team," said El Camino Coach Ron McClurkin, whose team finished in a three-way tie for third in the South Coast Conference.

El Camino may have won only four games during the regular season, but the Wildcats seem to know how to win when it counts. El Camino won the 2-A championship in 1984 and reached the 2-A semifinals last year. With their win over the Dons at USD, the Wildcats (5-6-0) have a 2-A quarterfinal date next Saturday with top-seeded Lincoln. USDHS finished 9-2-0. Running back Joe Emerick keyed El Camino's win over USDHS Friday night.

Morris Giddens of Gardena High plans to attend El Camino College and run track in the fall. Giddens, the City Section 1,600-meter champion, placed second in the event in a personal best 4 minutes, 10.50 seconds at last month's state meet. It was the highest finish in eight years by a City Section runner in the state meet's 1,600. As a junior, Giddens won the 3,200 and placed second in the 1,600 at the City championship meet.

Strong performances by Ivan Wilson, who scored two touchdowns, and quarterback Jerry Singleton, who completed 19 of 26 passes for 295 yards and two touchdowns, helped El Camino dominate Rancho Santiago, 38-20, Saturday night. After a 55-yard touchdown interception return by El Camino's Shawn Parnell on the second play from scrimmage, Rancho Santiago answered when Mark Flatten caught a 10-yard pass from quarterback Gabe Garcia with 5:27 left in the first quarter.

El Camino Resources, a privately held Northridge company that leases and sells mainframe and mid-range computers, said its net income grew 9% to $3.3 million in the fiscal year that ended April 30 from $3 million in fiscal 1989. Revenues increased 62% to $255 million from $157.2 million. Though privately held companies are not required to disclose their financial results to the public, El Camino said it did so to show its "unique combination of prudent business and accounting practices."

El Camino Resources Ltd., a Northridge-based lessor of computers and related equipment, said it acquired a majority stake in Applied Technology Corp. (Europe), a London-based company that buys and sells computers. At the same time, Applied Technology (Europe) purchased Bell Atlantic Financial GmbH, a German computer-leasing arm of Bell Atlantic Corp., the Philadelphia-based telecommunications giant.

Akili Smith, who earlier this week was selected as the first-team J.C. Grid-Wire all-American quarterback, will lead Grossmont into the Simple Green Orange County Bowl against El Camino at 1:30 p.m. today at Orange Coast. Smith, a sophomore, threw for 2,896 yards and 31 touchdowns and rushed for 282 yards and three more touchdowns for Grossmont (9-1), which is ranked 15th in the nation. El Camino counters with freshman quarterback Damion Ward, who threw for 2,797 yards and 18 touchdowns.