SoCalHoops High School News

Venice Beats San Pedro At Home--(Jan. 9, 1999)

Venice 83,  San Pedro 69--San Pedro is not a half bad team, but they just can't seem to put together the "big" win.  In the Best in the West, they lost (predictably) to Dominguez in the first round, then beat Laguna Creek in the second round of consolation play, then beat LA High in the round of eight, only to lose in the semifinal of consolation play.  Venice for its part is a very talented team that had trouble living up to it's reputation after playing one of the worst games ever in the final of the Beverly Hills tournament where they lost to Palisades.  But since early December, Venice has again come together, and they hammered opponents towards the end of December, and lately they are playing as a cohesive unit. So they came into this game with speed, size, and as the favorites.

Venice Coach Dave Goosen described this game to us as,   "The most intense, wildest and craziest high school game environment I've ever seen or been in."  He elaborated by telling us, "San Pedro's gym, which was probably built in the '20's, is a cracker-box, with no acoustics, bad lighting, and no sideline room between the bleachers and the floor.  If you've got more than a size 6 shoe, you can't take the ball out from the baseline without being on the court. If you sneeze, you'll pop an eardrum. This place was just wild, and it was packed.  They were turning people away at the door," Goosen told us. "There were people everywhere, in the stands, in the corners, literally on the floor. It was just nuts."

And those who made it into the gym saw a great game, and at least for the first two and a half quarters, San Pedro had a chance. It's really hard to tell just how good San Pedro might be.  Their gym is probably worth a 10 point advantage to the home team, and curiously, they just don't seem to exploit what they could do best, i.e., run a patient, disciplined half-court offense. Instead, Coach Ed Ezpeleta's strategy, especially against the bigger and stronger teams we've seen them play this year, continues to be to try to run, run, run, and just like the result in prior games with good teams, his Pirates ran out of gas about midway through the third.  Of course the same thing happened when San Pedro played Compton Dominugez in the Best in the West, and it also happened when they played Manual Arts in the We Care Classic over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Pretty soon, San Pedro will learn that it's best option, notwithstanding Ian Dixon, Andy Gallego and Oscar Abrons, is not to try to run with the big dogs. 

And Venice has some really big dogs.  Glen McGowan, who finished the night with a game high 33 points, is 6'-8";  Joe Dural is 6'-8";  David Vance is 6'-8". And they've also got guys like Kyle Morrison, Montel Duhon,  and Kevin Johnson, who can run and shoot with just about anyone.   Teams can certainly run with these guys, but not a lot of teams will be able to do it for four full quarters.  San Pedro stayed close in the first quarter, and Venice only led 21-19 at the end of the quarter.  McGowan had 9 first quarter points, Dural 6.  Kevin Johnson played great for Venice, and had 11 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 steals. Kyle Morrison off bench played great defense on Abrons, and he shut down Abrons, who scored 7 during first quater, and only managed another 7 during the rest of the game.

In the second quarter, the running strategy of Ezpeleta's seemed to be working, and both teams scored 16 in the second quarter, and at the half the score was 37-35 Venice.  McGowan had 17 (another 6 in the second quarter) in the half, including three threes, couple of dunks, and he was playing great inside and outside.

San Pedro stuck to it's plan, and no one will ever accuse the Pirates of not being determined to stick with what they know.  Unfortunately, they're a little like Jimmy Durante: They only know one song, and with about 3 minutes gone in the third quarter Venice had figured out that if they were going to lock this one up, their big guys would have to really go to work.  That was when Glen McGowan, on 3-on-2 bringing the ball up-court, threw what was really a bad alley oop pass to Dural that Joe managed to catch sort of behind his head, kept control and made a spectacular tomahawk dunk right in the face of a San Pedro defender.  From that moment on, there was really no doubt about which team was going to control the temp of the game. Dural then exploded for 10 and McGowan for 7 in the third quarter, and Venice outscored San Pedro 22-13 in the third quarter to bring the score to 59-48.  In the fourth quarter, San Pedro made a run, cutting the lead to about 6, but Venice then set up another spectacular play which was just a back-breaker as Kyle Morrison, running the ball on a 2-on-1 fast break, hit Glen McGowan on a cross-court bounce pass which Glen caught and he went up for the shot, making another great tomahawk dunk and getting the foul call to convert a three point play, to put Venice back up by 9.  The shot really iced the game, and San Pedro never made another run.  During the fourth quarter, Venice stretched the lead to 20 prior to clearing the bench.  Glen had 7 in the quater and Joe had 8  Overall, Dural finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Glen McGowan scored 33 points and had 6 rebounds. 

David Vance also had his biggest and best game of the year for Venice, finishing with 9 rebounds; while he only had 4 points, he was active in the paint, blocking and altering shots.  Steve Brown for Venice, coming in off the bench,   had 5 rebounds, all key to the win, and he finished with 5 points. For San Pedro, Ian Dixon had 19, and Ocar Abrons had 14, while Andy Gallego finished with 10.  One of  San Pedro's biggest problems was that their normally fine shooting from Todd Sanchez was non-existant.  He took about 8 from the field, but missed them all, and his three points on the night all came from the line.

Venice is looking pretty good going into Conference play on Wednesday at Hamilton at 4:00 p.m., and these two teams will get a rematch of their second round game from the Beverly Hills tournament this past December.  San Pedro plays at Washington at 4:00 p.m.  

Venice opens conference play on Wednesday at Hamilton

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