High School Athletics

The Times' weekly football rankings: -- Others: Culver City, Serrano, Newbury Park. Rankings are based on votes of nine members of the Times' high school staff. A first-place vote is worth 25 points, second-place is worth 24, etc. *--* Rk Team (Rec, Last This Week Pts (LW) Section) Week's Result 1 MATER DEIdef. at St. John Bosco, Friday 225 (1) (7-0, SS-Pac-5) Santa Margar ita, 34-7 2 CORONA def.

It's lunch time at Jordan High in Los Angeles, and football Coach Elijah Asante is quietly fuming. He had invited a visitor to campus to meet sophomore DeShawn Beck, who has played a key role in the Bulldogs' rise to the top of the Eastern League standings, but Beck has slipped out and gone to a restaurant a few blocks from campus. Beck sheepishly admitted he heard some choice words from his coach when he returned, along with a promise of extra work at practice that day.

When Troy Thomas was in his first year coaching football at Encino Crespi in 2001, a student came into his tiny office and said, "I want to play bagpipes for you." "He shut the door and starts playing," Thomas said. "I got chills." So started Crespi's tradition of having a bagpiper lead the team onto the field. Thomas brought the same idea with him to Anaheim Servite, which means Friday's 4:30 p.m.

On Sunday, commissioners from the 10 sections that make up the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports in the state, will meet to determine the pairings for the three CIF state football championship bowl games that will take place on Dec. 15 at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

Football championships will be decided in 15 City and Southern Section divisions this weekend. Here's a look at some of the upcoming games: CITY SECTION CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION Carson (11-2) vs. Lake Balboa Birmingham (12-1) at Coliseum, 8 p.m. Friday -- It's a meeting between the top-seeded Patriots, seeking their fourth City title in six years, and second-seeded Carson, which has won 11 City championships with the last one coming in 2003.

A 16-year old football player who collapsed in August during practice at Arnold O. Beckman High School in Irvine died of heatstroke, the Orange County coroner's office said Thursday. Kenny Wilson, a 6-foot-2, 276-pound junior lineman, fell ill toward the end of 2 1/2 hours of conditioning drills that began at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 17. Officials with the Tustin Unified School District said the heat-related death could prompt policy changes for athletic practices.

A 16-year-old football player who collapsed in August during the first day of practice at Arnold O. Beckman High School in Irvine died of heatstroke, the Orange County coroner's office said Thursday. Kenny Wilson, a 6-foot-2, 276-pound junior lineman, fell ill toward the end of 2 1/2 hours of conditioning drills that began at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 17. Officials with the Tustin Unified School District said the heat-related death could prompt policy changes for athletic practices.

Change is coming to high school sports in the City Section, and it's reflected in the demographic transformation taking place in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Thirty years ago, Canoga Park didn't have a soccer team and its student body was 65% Caucasian. Last year, the soccer-playing sons of immigrants from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia helped Canoga Park finish 24-0-1 and earn recognition as the nation's No. 1 boys' soccer team.

As Concord De La Salle concluded its 37-0 victory over San Ramon California in the North Coast Section 4A championship game on Saturday, Spartans supporters no doubt were shouting, "We're No. 1." A better cry would have been, "We're coming back." De La Salle (12-0) is the only team of the six in last year's inaugural CIF state bowl championship games lineup to return for Round 2 this weekend.

There can't be anything more frightening for a high school football coach these days than trying to figure out how to stop Corona Centennial's seemingly unstoppable spread offense. "You have to rely on a fumble," Santa Ana Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson quipped, and his team defeated the Huskies, 51-37, on Oct. 4 despite surrendering 681 total yards. The genius of the offense devised by Coach Matt Logan is that the Huskies can run or pass with equal effectiveness out of a shotgun formation.