la city section preview

Boys City Section Final City Championship Game	Girls City Section Final City Championship Game
Fairfax (24-5) v. No. 2 Manual Arts (26-3) UCLA Pauley Pavilion, 8:00 p.m.	No. 1 Palisades (25-4) v. No. 3Washington (16-5) UCLA Pauley Pavilion, 6:00 p.m.

Win or lose, these games will qualify both the winner and the runner-up for the CIF State Regionals in the State Championship Tournament. In today's edition of the LA Times, our friend Gary Klein did a small preview of the Manual v. Fairfax game, which we'll supplement with a bit of additional info:

Fairfax and Manual Arts met once this season, a 76-73 victory by Fairfax in a Coastal Conference game January 15. Other than that one loss, Manual hasn't dropped a game to any other City opponents. The win also gave the Fairfax Lions the top-seed spot in the City Section playoffs and bumped Manual Arts to the No. 2 spot. Both teams have played as expected and there haven't been any major upsets along the way which would prevent the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds from meeting, so we're guessing that the seeding committee is pretty happy with itself right now. Fairfax is 24-5 and Manual Arts is now 26-3. the game tips off at 8:00 p.m.

Here are the rosters for both teams (note, there may have been additions and some JV players may have moved up for the playoffs; we'll supplement these as soon as we get the official rosters tonight at the game):

Manual Arts Toilers	Fairfax Lions
Mario Roberts (6'-1" Jr. PG/SG) James Wright (6'-0" Sr. PG) Curtis Millage (5'-11" Sr. PG/SG) Otis Belisle (6'-2" Sr. SG/SF) Brandon Moorer (6'-8" Sr. PF/C) Johnny Hardwick (6'-10" Sr. C) Larry Dillingham (6'-2" Sr. PG) Ronald Cass (6'-3" Sr. SG/SF/PF) Earl Felix (6'-5" So. PF) Luis Rodriguez (6'-6" Sr. C) Deandre Morris (6'-4" Jr. F) Jason Crow (6'-4" Jr. F)	Joe Shipp (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) Ismael Torres (6'-2" Jr. SG/SF) Fernando Sampson (6'-0" Fr. G) Marqui Jones (6'-4" Jr. F) Kevin Cooper (6'-1" Sr. G) Fauzi Abdelsamad (6'-0" Jr. G) Evan Burns (6'-5" Fr. F) Lovestar Adams (6'-2" Jr. G) Stan Thorne (5'-11" Sr. PG) Jason Morrissette (6'-4" Jr. SG/SF) Craig Smith (6'-6" So. F/C)

This game will be a contrast in styles, with Manual running, and running, and running, and even with Fairfax speed, they will probably want to try to put them into a half-court game, because Manual from all we've seen just doesn't have any semblance of a half-court game. The Toilers depend pretty much exclusively on their speed and sheer athleticism, while Fairfax has depended largely on Stan Thorne's ability to get the ball to the open man in the half-court, or Shipp and Morriesette's ability to drive to the hole; while Fairfax isn't without a transition game, it's not their strongest suit, and we'd expect Manual to be relentless in the pressure. And no matter how this game turns out, we're still putting in our vote for Joe Shipp as the City Section Player of the Year, because, no matter what anyone else's contribution to the team effort, there have been games where Joe has just carried the team, and he's averaging something like 28 points per game.

This is Manual Arts' second trip in a row to the final, and last year they were no match for Westchester, which overpowered them. This time though, even though their still not a terribly sophisticated team when it comes to running complex offenses, they've still got the speed and quickness to pull off a win, and Fairfax has no one who can dominate a game (with the exception of Shipp) like Bluthenthal and Tony Bland did last year. Manual does have some superior athletes, and at least three current D-I signees: James Wright (6'-0" Sr. PG) is probably the quickest guard in the City, and had it not been for Shipp this year, we would consider him as the Player of the Year. . . and depending on how this game turns out, Shipp might have to share the honor with Wright as a co-MVP. Wright has signed with Long Beach State, so you'll get the chance to see him for the next four years and he'll be an immediate impact player. Other signees are Brandon Moorer, who had a great game against Crenshaw, and Johnny Hardwick, who sometimes disappears for large stretches but who showed up for most of the game last Saturday against Crensahw. Both Johnny and Brandon have signed with Texas A&M at Corpus Christi.

How they got here: Manual Arts beat Dorsey, Washington and Crenshaw to reach the final. Fairfax, making its first appearance in the final since 1995, defeated Venice, Reseda Cleveland and Westchester to make the final.

Again, the game is at 8:00 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion, and will be preceded by the Girls' City Championship game. The girls' final between Palisades (25-4) and Washington (16-5) features senior forward Nicole Funn-Lockley and senior guard Leilani Estavan for top-seeded Palisades against third-seeded Washington.

See you there.