SoCalHoops High School News

adidas SoCal Classic: Dominguez
Handles Stokes & Poly--(Jan. 31, 1999)

Despite a miserable first quarter, Long Beach Poly, coming off an overtime victory in a Moore League game against Long Beach Jordan on Friday night, took the Dominguez Dons right down to the wire behind the impressive ball handling and driving ability of the Jackrabbit's junior point guard, Wesley Stokes who, all things considered, had a rather inconsistent night. Which just makes you wonder how much closer this game would've been if he'd been able to hit the 10 shots which he missed during the first quarter of this game. Well, if that had happened, Poly would have defeated the No. 9 team in the country (according to USA Today). But that didn't happen. Compton Dominguez features "The Franchise" and it was interesting listening to ex-Laker Michael Cooper before the game speculate about just how tall Tyson really is. He's listed at 7'-0" and he's just a sophomore, but everyone on the Fox Sports West 2 crew seemed to believe that he was bigger than that. Never mind that he had just four points in this game. Never mind that he picked up his fourth foul, a technical for throwing an elbow midway through the third quarter and had to sit for an extended period of time. Tyson still showed us all what a defensive force he can be, coming away with 9 blocked shots, four in the first quarter alone and in only about 20 minutes of play. Very impressive indeed.

Oh, Dominguez won this game, by a score of 50-54, but not before Long Beach Poly, which features Wesley Stokes, Shea Anderson, Lionel Penman, Joe Travis and Kenny Wright, among others, took them right down to the wire. And did we say that Poly had one of their worst starts ever this season, trailing at the end of the first quarter 17-4. The only players to score for Poly in that dismal first quarter were Penman and Anderson. Stokes, who must have jacked up about 10 shots in the first quarter, didn't hit one, and so coach Ron Palmer sat him down with about two minutes to go in the quarter to contemplate what he was going to do to get the game back under control. In the first four minutes, Dominguez went on a 10-4 run, and in that same four minutes, Tyson had three blocks, and Marcus Moore had 3 assists. At 2:51, Dominguez subbed the entire 5, putting in Larry Johnson, Darius Sanders, Keilon Fortune, Cedric Thompkins and Steve Moore in place of Tyson, Ronald Jackson, Keith Brooks, Keith Kincade, and Marcus Moore, while Poly went with Adrian Martin and Jonathan Harper for Stokes and Penman. Palmer was getting very frustrated, yelling for Martin to "run the damn offense" but whatever it was he was running, it wasn't what Palmer wanted, and with 23 seconds remaining, Dominguez had jumped out to a 17-4 lead, and that's the way the quarter ended, with Stokes sitting and Dominguez scoring. In the first quarter, Marcus Moore had 4 points for Dominguez, Jackson 2, Brooks 6, Steve Moore 3 (a single three-pointer) and Larry Johnson had 2; Penman and Anderson (on a short jumper) were the only scorers for Poly (hey we already said that, right?).

The biggest mismatch of this game was Joe Travis having to post up aganst Tyson, and Joe was just not able to get around, over or through the big guy. In the second quarter, Wesley was supposed to go to the line after his shot got blocked by Tyson, but evidently they didn't send him to the stripe, and he and Ronald Jackson got into a little shoving match resulting in double t's, the first two of the three technicals called in the game which was fast, physical and frantic, even if Dominguez' offense sort of went into a free-fall during the second quarter from which the Dons almost didn't recover. In the second quarter, Dominguez stalled a bit, and Poly pulled within 6, and the score was only 27-21 at the half. Marcus Moore made two free throws, Jackson missed one, Brooks had 5 points all in the paint, Larry Johnson had 2, and Sanders made one of two free throws, and Bobby Jones missed both free throw attempts. For Poly in the second quarter, Charles Jones led with 6 points, Wesley made four free throws, Jonathan Harper had 2 points, Anderson had 2, Markee White had a 2 and one free throw.

After three quarters it was more of the same, with both teams showing their incredible athleticism, and Poly just hanging around, still trailing by 6, 38-32. For Dominguez, Marcus Moore scored another 4 in the quarter, Brooks 2, Steve Moore a 3, Sanders had 2; For Poly Stokes finished the quarter with another 1, Harper 1, Wright 3, and Anderson 6 (3 two pointers).

Keilon got the first two of the fourth quarter, and then hit Tyson for an impossible slam which had Tyson falling on the floor out of bounds. Shea Anderson shot one directly over Tyson which was sort of nice to see, both because Anderson is a really great player and a genuinely nice kid (who could be going to Harvard to study pre-medicine, but he told us he'll opt instead to stay at home and will probably go to UCLA or maybe one of the Claremont Colleges), and just to see that Tyson can't block everything. With the score 36-44 Dominguez at 5:34 to play, Tyson and Anderson were called for double fouls, sending Tyson to the bench with four. Stokes then went to the line, hit two and Poly was back within 6 again. Stokes then hit one of his patented rainbow arc 3's to bring the score to within 3, 41-44 with only 4:58 to play. Wesley was then fouled, and went to the line hitting two to bring the score to one, 44-43, and amazingly, for a team that only scored 2 points in the first 7 minutes of the first quarter, they were on the verge of upsetting the No. 1 or No. 2 team in the State (depending upon which poll you're partial to). Brooks was fouled hard by Anderson in the rebound jumble which ensued after Tyson took three shot attempts each of which missed, and he sank two to bring the score to 46-43. But Wesley came right back, driving hard to the hoop and was fouled, went to the line and sank two more and Poly trailed by just one again. Tyson then got his only slam dunk of the night, a tremendous shot, which put Poly up by three, 48-45. Again, Stokes, like the Energizer Bunny, came storming back, driving hard and was fouled by Moore, and yet again, he went to the line but this time missed them both, and the score stayed at 48-45 weith only 3:07 to play. But it wasn't over by any mean and anything could happen.

Again, Poly managed to cut the lead to 1 several times, but with 53.4 to play, the score was 50-54. Poly had several chances to tie the score at the end, but each of them missed, and Dominguez escaped with a narrow victory, showing that while they are a very talented and cohesive unit, they can (and probably will be) beaten at some point between now and the State Championship Tournament. Not that we're predicting anything less than a State Title for this team; we just think that even with their incredible depth, they're going to have one hell of a tough time against Oak Hill next weekend in the Nike Extravaganza IV which will take place at Cal State Fullerton. The scoring in the fourth quarter had Marcus Moore with another 6, Kincaide with 2, Brooks 4, Chandler 4, Fortune 2, Johnson 1; For Poly, Stokes had 10 (1 three-pointer, the rest free throws), Wright 2, Anderson 2, and White 2.

And as for Poly, they were, notwithstanding the miserable first quarter, still very impressive and, having come off an overtime victory against Jordan in a Moore League game less than 24 hours earlier, this was a heck of a performance. And as Wesley Stokes said to us after the game, "Hey, it wasn't a league game, so I'm not really upset about it. I would have like to win, but we won the one that counted on Friday night. Other than pride and knowing we can beat Dominguez, this one really didn't count."

For a game that didn't count, both teams played pretty hard. Big time fun. You had to be there.

The final scoring for the game was as follows: For Dominguez, Marcus Moore finished with 16 points, Keith Brooks had 17, Steve Moore had 6, Ronald Jackson 2, Larry Johnson had 5, Sanders had 3, Kincade 2, Chandler 4 and Fortune 2.

For Poly, Stokes finished with 15, Anderson had 12, Charles Jones had 6, Penman had 2, Jonathan Harper had 2 points, Markee White had 5, Harper 1, and Wright 5.

Here's the scoring by quarters and some pics we managed to take: