SoCalHoops Tournament News

Best In The West Shootout:
Playoff Results & Finals Schedule--(July 2, 1999)

Wow. . . talk about series games which could be a prelude to next season's CIF Division I playoffs: Either Dominguez v.  Long Beach Poly  and Artesia v. Long Beach Jordan fighting it out for the right to play in the finals tonight at 8:30 p.m. in the Championship game.  Actually either of these two semis is also worthy of the title "Championship" as well, and if you're not busy this afternoon, there's no other place to be besides Artesia.   And tonight, if you aren't going to be in the Valley at the "War on the Floor" over at Pierce College, there's no excuse for not making it over to Artesia for what could be one of the best games of the year.

Here are the results from yesterday's Best in the West Summer Shootout:

Championship Bracket Games:

Upland 55, Mayfair 49
Crossroads 52, Clovis West 46
Ayala 54,  Dominguez 68
Fontana 51, LB Jordan 65
LB Poly 82, Upland 64
Artesia 74, Crossroads 52

Again we got stuck yesterday at other locations (well, "stuck" is probably not a good word, but we were at the Slam N Jam Carson Grand Finale and at the War on the Floor, so we missed these games), but we managed to get some details which we pieced together from our spies, and from reports from Mike Miller (see, we can steal his stuff too).  Here's what we know about the games:

Upland 55, Mayfair 49
Josh Childress didn't play and that was probably fatal for Mayfair. Upland's Tye-Juan Hatter scored 16 points, Jason Harris scored a double-double with 10/10, and Prentice Harris also played very well.

Crossroads 52, Clovis West 46
Apparently no one actually saw this game, because we have absolutely no details, except that we can pretty much speculate that Chris Hernandez and Charlie Rodriguez on the one hand and Felipe Williams and Isaiah Fox must have completely neutralized each other. We'll see if we can get ahold of the scoring sheets from Ebony to figure out what really happened.

Ayala 54,  Dominguez 68
Close, but no cigar.  Ayala, a team which is deceptively good, continues to scare the daylights out of bigger, better and more well-known teams.  Actually Ayala has many returning players, and led by Marcel Burke (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) who is turning into a great shooter and finished with 19 points, and Chris Pacana (6'-0" Sr. PG/SG) who had 12.

Fontana 51, LB Jordan 65
Jordan's latest transfer from St. Anthony, point guard AJ Diggs (5'-8" Sr. PG) hit for 15 points, and Travon Bryant scored 20 for Jordan.We heard that Jordan Walker (6'-4' Sr. SG/SF) continues to impress and he's worth college coaches checking out.

LB Poly 82, Upland 64
Kris Snyder (6'-6" Jr. SF) playing the post and guards Sheldon Pace (5'-10" Jr. PG) and Prentice Harris (6'-0" Jr SG) led Upland. Kris finished with 16 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 blocks and 3 steals. Sheldon had  9 points, 6 assists and 3 steals, while Tye-Juan Hatter (6'-4" So. SF) had 8 points.  Wesley Stokes was again demonstrating that he's taken his game to another level, and he played spectacularly. Ellis Myles also scored, finishing with 26 points.

Artesia 74, Crossroads 52
Jack Martinez (6'-9" Jr. PF/SG) scored 22 points in the first half, and finished with 32. Crossroads' Isaiah Fox scored 14 , and Felipe Williams (6'-4" Sr. SG) hit for 28.

Consolation Games:

San Bernadino 65,  Serra 62
Lakewood 54,  J.W. North 52
Harvard-Westlake 75, Bonita Vista 60
Rosemead 2, Redondo 0 (forfeit)

San Bernadino 65,  Serra 62
Lacy Wadkins of San Bernadino finished with  21 points, Serra's Eugene Jeter had 22, and Doyle Cole finished with 16. Serra was eliminated from the tournament in this single elimination game, and they probably would have done much better had Aerick Sanders (6'-10" Sr. PF/C) been in town.  Aerick will be at ABCD next week and then at the Double Pump West Coast All-Star Camp.  We have not heard whether Doyle Cole, who usually plays with  Pump N Run I will be on the roster or not. San Bernardino moved on in the consolation bracket and was slated to play the under-achieving Centennial team, and we say underachieving because they are a team in need of some time together and obviously haven't gelled yet.

Lakewood 54,  J.W. North 52
In the consolation bracket, Lakewood's Robert Hicks hit for 24 points, including 6 three's.

Harvard-Westlake 75, Bonita Vista 60
Eric Geffner finished with 16 points, and Russell Lakey, having a bad day, only finished with 10 points. He did distribute the ball pretty well though, and Kelechi Ogbunamiri also played well for H-W.

Here's the Championship Bracket, with the partial results from yesterday filled in:

Here's the Consolation Bracket, with results from yesterday, and today's games, and just like the Division III CIF playoffs, Harvard Westlake with their win over Bonita Vista managed to make it to the semifinals.   We heard that Russell Lakey played another great game, as did Kelechi Ogbunamiri.  

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