jason day fairfax v. manual photo spread

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SoCalHoops High School News

Jason Day: Late City Section Final Report,
Manual Downs Fairfax--(March 8, 1999)

While we were at the Bren Events Center last Friday night, Jason Day and his photographer buddy Larry Gray were out at Pauley Pavilion checking out the City "Championship" Finals between No. 1 seed Fairfax and No. 2 seed Manual Arts. We would have posted this earlier, but we were frankly just swamped with work, and Jason had a bit of work himself to do, so this article wasn't posted over at UltraStudentAthletes Online until yesterday anyway. Great article, great pics, can't wait for State.

Tomorrow night Manual plays Long Beach Poly at Manual Arts, while Fairfax is at Artesia, and those will be some incredible games. Decisions, decisions, decisions..... Here's Jason's article and Larry's photos:

MANUAL DOMINATES FAIRFAX, TAKES CITY 79-65

by Jason Day

photos by Larry Gray

Stan Thorne and the rest of his team
must have though all of Manual's
players were as big as Brandon
Moorer appears to be here.

This was the last of the "big" games in the City Section this year and it was a dandy. At least if you are a Manual Arts fan. If you're a Fairfax fan, you're probably a bit shell shocked. With a #1 seed, that was earned in no small part with an earlier win over Manual, Fairfax came into this contest with high hopes. They suffered through a disappointing last season when they saw their highly talented team crippled by injuries to two stars (Joe Shipp, and Tommy Johnson) and although Johnson transferred to Crenshaw, this year's team came back strong and became a serious contender to take it all.

Manual ran, and ran, and ran, then ran
some more...here Larry Dillingham
leads the break as Johnny Hardwick trails.

Manual, last year's runner-up to Westchester, came back this year with essentially the same team. They had their ups and downs, but in the last month have been playing outstanding ball led by SR/PG James Wright. Wright's game has skyrocketed and he's just been killin folks on the floor.

Joe Shipp challenges Moorer at the rack.

So at about 8:15pm. last night at Pauley Pavillion, the game tipped off. About 10 mins. or so later it was mostly over. It started off bad for Fairfax from the git. With Manual playing a 3/4 to half court 1-2-2 zone, Fairfax continued their pattern of having severe problems with a zone, any zone. They had the same problems with Cleveland's half court 2-3 zone and had to scramble to a win. They'd have no such chance in this one, as they started to throw the ball over the place, mostly to Manual defenders.

Fairfax SR/PG, Stan Thorne moves through
traffic, he got very few opportunities
against the smothering Manual D..

At about the middle of the 1st quarter, Fairfax point, Stan Thorne, went to the bench with his 3rd personal. When he came bac with 5:50 left in the 1st half, his team was down 23-9. The Fairfax faithful were suffering "whiplash" by that time as they watch their team head in one direction, then had to snap their heads back in the other direction after the steal, the bad pass, the block, you name it.

After scorching the Fairfax defenders
in the open court, Manual's SR/PG,
James Wright, adds insult to injury
by slammin' it home.

The problem. Fairfax's guard play against the tenacious aggressive Manual defense. It was smothering. There were sequences where Fairfax turned the ball over 3 to 4 times in a row, and that happened a few times in the game. It was ugly. It was very rare to see Manual resort to a half court offense in this game. They didn't have to, they just kept taking the ball away from the Lions then running it down the court for layups. Manual shot very, very few balls from outside in this game.

Ron Cass puts it on the floor against Joe Shipp..

At the half, it was 41-20 Manual. In the second it was more of the same. While Fairfax was able to keep the ball long enough to attack the basket, they converted few of them. They missed some key layups that might have given somewhat of a spark to their efforts. In between they continued to turn it over to the Manual D. Fairfax started to apply some pressure of their own. But the dividends were few and far between. As long as Manual ensured that the ball got into Wright's or Curtis Millage's hands they could sit back and watch either one of em shred the defense and finish on their own, or dish to a streaking Larry Dillingham, Brandon Moorer, or Otis Belisle.

Manual "big man", Johnny Hardwick,
puts down the jam. He only had 4pts.
but the Toilers only needed his
defense and rebounding.

At the end of the third Manual was still up by 20, 54-34.

The fourth saw Fairfax outscore Manual by about 9 to close the gap to 10 or 11 with about 4 min. left in the game. They were in the bonus and double bonus for most of the quarter and spent alot of time on the line. Manual's defense gave up a couple of easy buckets, and Fairfax was threatening. A huge performance by Freshman, Evan Burns was a key to keeping the momentum going. He had 16 pts, 10 in the second half, and was perfect from the field. At 6'5, he can handle the ball, rebound, and has a real sweet shot. On top of all that he's a good defender, and has some move to the rack. I told y'all this before: Watch this kid, he's got star written all over him.

Fairfax freshman, Evan Burns (right) blocks
Johnny Hardwick. Burns was a big bright
spot for Fairfax as he showed everybody
what a future star looks like in a big game.
He finished with 16 big points.

Anyway, there was a key sequence coming up. It was the whole Fairfax game condensed into 5 possessions. Manual was in a rare half court offensive set (running some clock), when Fairfax stole the ball. Manual stole it back. Fairfax stole it back. Manual stole it back. Fairfax stole it back. Manual stole it back, and scored. Oh well.

Manual's Otis Belisle "gits some"...
his defense was a major key to this
victory and easy layups like this one
were his reward.

The final was 79-65 and it really wasn't that close.

For Fairfax, Shipp had 19, Morrissette 21 (19 in the 2nd half), Burns 16, Thorne 6.

Jason Morrissette's 21 pts. paced Faifax,
but they were hard earned. Here he goes
up against Hardwick.

For Manual, Wright finished with 21 (and a "grip" of assists), Millage had 15, Moorer 10, Dillingham 13, Belisle 7, Roberts 6. Johnny made his mark on D, and had 4 pts.

Manual's Curtis Millage with the off
balance shot. Yep, it fell too for 2
of his 15.

Congrats to Manual and good luck to both teams as they both move on to the state tourney.

.Manual's Roberts (what's his first name)
takin his turn to run on Fairfax.

later

jason day