mater dei

If July is all about camps, traveling teams, large "exposure" tournaments, June is all about high school teams and high school tournaments. Several events will get going this weekend, including the LA Watts Summer games at 8 different venues throughout Los Angeles. But there are other tournaments, including Mater Dei's second tournament in two weeks which begins tomorrow, June 17, and which runs through Saturday, June 19, 1999.

All the games in this one will be played exclusively at Mater Dei (unlike last week's tournament, which had games played at Ocean View). Some of the best talent from around the region will be playing, including top seed Mater Dei (of course), Santa Margarita, Los Alamitos, Costa Mesa, Dana Hills, University, Highland, Orange, Long Beach Poly, and even a newly reconstituted Crespi team, which will probably be playing without Mike Luderer (transfer to Notre Dame) or Gregg Guenther (transfer to LA Taft). Mater Dei will also have another team, simply called "Mater Dei #2" and whether it's the JV's or Gary McKnight has simply decided to split his usual 17 man roster into two teams for the summer so that everyone gets lots of playing time, is something we'll have to wait and see to find out, but we're suspecting that's exactly what McKnight has done, including sprinkling the rosters of both Mater Dei #1 and Mater Dei #2 with several jv and frosh-soph players. Yeah, we're speculating, but it would make sense: Summer is the time for everyone to get game time, and goodness knows that during the regular season, Mater Dei's bench is so deep that some of the guys never take their warmups off.

All kidding and speculation aside, this will be a great opportunity to see some of the usual suspects from Mater Dei, including all of the returning players from last season's great team, guys like Mike Strawberry, Steve Scoggin, Jamaal Sampson, Cedric Bozeman, Erik Soderberg, and it will also be a chance to see some of the new young players, including possibly Harrison Schaen. You'll also be able to get a look at Santa Margarita with Kevin and Ryan Stacey, Travis Smith, Brandon Rohe, Dan Quijano, R.J. Socci, and Spencer Gloger's little brother, Jeffrey Gloger, as well as the Los Al guys like Ron Prettyman, Ryan Keller, Ken Carter, Brian Rakusin, Jeff Smith , Eddie Courtemarche, and Jeff Grgas. Long Beach Poly will is one of the teams favored to wind up in the Championship, and it will be an opportunity to watch Wesley Stokes at work in addition to guys like Joe Travis, Markee White, Jonathan "Jono" Harper, Jim Kresel, Adrian Martin, and Lonnel Penman. As for teams like Highland, Huntington beach, Uni, Costa Mesa, Dana Hills and Orange, it will be our first chance to see them at all.

Thursday, June 17	At Mater Dei HS
Game # 1 9:00 p.m.	Highland v. Mater Dei #1
Game #2 4:30 p.m.	Huntington Beach v. University
Friday, June 18
Game #3 3:00 p.m.	Costa Mesa v. Dana Hills

Thursday, June 17, 1999	At Mater Dei HS
Game #4 7:30 p.m.	Crespi v. Santa Margarita
Game #5 3:00 p.m.	Mater Dei #2 v. Los Alamitos
Game #6 6:00 p.m.	Orange v. Long Beach Poly

The winners immediately go over to the Championship side of the bracket and the losers go into games in the consolation side of the bracket. The semifinal games will take place in the Championship bracket Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. and because of byes, in the bracketing, the winners of the Long Beach Poly v. Orange and Dana Hills v. Costa Mesa jump right into the semis; the losers of these games go right into the semis of the consolation bracket.

The bracket structure has Los Al or Mater Dei #2 meeting the winner of Santa Margarita v. Crespi on Friday at 9:00 p.m. and the winner of Mater Dei #1 v. Highland meeting the winner of Huntington Beach v. University also on Friday at 7:30 p.m. In the consolation bracket, there will be two other games on Friday, one at 4:30 p.m. (which is the losers of the HB v. Uni/Mater Dei v. Highland) and at 6:00 p.m. (losers in Mater Dei#2 v. Los Al/Crespi v. Santa Margarita).

On Saturday, there will be games all day, starting at 9:00 a.m. with consolation games. Winner's bracket games will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. The Consolation final will take place Saturday at 6:00 p.m. and the Championship game will take place Saturday night at 9:00 p.m.