NOTEBOOK : 5 Bell Players Thrown Off Team

Five Bell High School varsity football players were kicked off the team by Coach Ray Galarze after Bell police found them during school hours at a party where alcohol was present.

Quarterback Omar Rodriguez, tailback Bobby Sullivan, fullback Rene Ramirez, linebacker Tony Hernandez and linebacker Israel Moreyra did not play in Friday’s 35-0 win at Jordan High. They also will miss the City Section playoffs that begin Friday.

Bell, the top-seeded team in 3-A Division playoffs, will play the loser of the Grant-Monroe game at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The Eagles, 9-1 overall and 9-0 in the Southeastern Conference, have a nine-game winning streak after losing their opening game to Bell Gardens. Bell did not qualify for the playoffs last season.

Rodriguez, 17, and Sullivan, Ramirez and Hernandez, all 18, were suspended from school for one or two days, according to school officials. Moreyra, 18, was not suspended because his term at the year-round school was not in session.

Four of the players skipped school Tuesday afternoon to attend a party with other Bell students, according to Galarze. Bell police responded to a disturbance call and discovered that the players were truant, Capt. Steve Webber said.

“We notified the school police about their truancy,” Webber said.

Los Angeles Unified School District Police Officer Sally Moctezuma said she and Officer Dennis Enright took the players back to school in a van.

“When Dennis and I arrived, there was alcohol present,” Moctezuma said. “There were empty cans and bottles. But there were over 30 students coming and going. None of the (players) were drunk. . . . There really isn’t any proof that they had been drinking.”

Galarze said he was at the school when the players arrived and he thought they had been drinking.

“When I got there, I could tell they had been drinking by the way they looked and smelled,” Galarze said. “They also admitted to me that they had been drinking.”

Moreyra said he attended the party with a group of his friends from Bell.

“We were dancing. Just the guys talking,” Moreyra said. “The police came to break up the party. We were not arrested. We were taken to the school.”

Moreyra said he and his teammates were immediately told by Galarze that they were dismissed from the team.

“Right now, we’re taking it kind of hard,” Moreyra said. “People have different stories about what happened. We couldn’t argue about anything that happened.”

Sullivan was the area’s third-leading rusher with 835 yards as of Nov. 6; Rodriguez was the 16th-leading passer. Ramirez and Hernandez were starters, and Moreyra was scheduled to start Friday after recovering from a broken clavicle.

Galarze said he told his team before the start of the season that any player caught under the influence of alcohol during school hours would be suspended from the team.

“They thought I would suspend them for one game, but they were in for a rude awakening,” Galarze said. “It was a hard thing to do, but I had to do it.”

Galarze used a makeshift lineup for Friday’s game. William Mendez, who had rushed for 379 yards in nine games, was made the starting tailback. Yoel Lopez, who suffered a knee injury against South Gate, returned as the starting fullback and Freddie Alcala, the team’s second-leading receiver, was moved to quarterback for the first half.

Football playoffs--The seedings for the City Section 4-A Division playoffs will be decided today at the Los Angeles Unified School District High School office. Sylmar, which had the best record in the Valley Pac-8 Conference, is expected to be named the top seed. A complete list of the football pairings will appear in The Times’ Sports section on Monday.

The 3-A Division pairings were announced Tuesday evening. First-round games involving area teams include Washington at Chatsworth, Fremont at Canoga Park, Manual Arts at Taft and Wilson at South Gate.

Off and running--The Cal State Los Angeles women’s cross-country team has earned its fifth berth in six seasons in the Division II national championships, scheduled for Saturday.

The team earned the berth at the Western Regional meet last week.

Times staff writer Kirby Lee contributed to this notebook.