Columnist Spencer Patterson: Tournaments abound locally during Spring Break

Spencer Patterson

Thursday, April 5, 2001 | 11:54 a.m.

Spencer Patterson covers prep sports for the Sun. Reach him at 259-4085 or spencer@lasvegassun.com

High schools will be off for spring break next week, but you won't find the area's top prep athletes resting on their laurels. To the contrary, Southern Nevada will play host to a plethora of tournaments to keep even the most diehard high school sports fan busy.

Baseball action kicks off Monday, with Durango's fifth annual adidas Invitational. This year, 28 teams will converge on Las Vegas for the three-day event, including local host schools Las Vegas, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Mojave and Durango as well as California powers Centennial and Bullard and Utah's Orem.

The event gets started Monday at 9 a.m., with three games at each site each day. Durango will also host an all-star night Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., with representatives from all schools slated to participate.

On Thursday, the 10th annual Bishop Gorman/Valley Easter Classic gets under way, with a record 46 teams scheduled to participate in the baseball extravaganza. Games will be played at 11 sites during the three-day event: Peccole Park, CCSN, Rancho, Clark, Valley, Chaparral, Palo Verde, Western, Silverado, Eldorado and Desert Pines. California schools Chatsworth, Chaminade and Kennedy will headline the field, which will feature squads from four states. Teams will play in nine divisions, with the overall tournament champion determined by record, runs scored and fewest runs allowed.

Softball fans will once again have plenty to take in at the Fred Davison Memorial, a 36-team tournament hosted by Clark and played at Kenny Guinn Middle School. Area squads Bishop Gorman, Bonanza, Centennial, Cimarron-Memorial, Clark, Durango, Eldorado, Foothill, Las Vegas and Palo Verde will join schools from California, Arizona and Idaho in the three-day event.

Finally, Chaparral's 60-team Las Vegas Easter Invitational -- the largest boys volleyball tournament in the southwest -- will run Monday and Tuesday at Chaparral, Foothill, Green Valley and Silverado. Schools from as far away as New York City are scheduled to join 13 local entries in the tourney, which concludes with a championship match Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Former Green Valley boys volleyball player Mitch Kallick, a junior at NYU, has been selected to the U.S. Men's Volleyball team for July's World Maccabiah Games in Israel...

Top area girls basketball players including Ronda Williams (Bonanza), Tenecia Jackson (Centennial) and Nikki Hitchens (Silverado) will team up for Saturday's Diamonds in the Rough All-Star Shootout 1 p.m. at UNLV's north gym.