SoCalHoops High School News

4th Annual We Care Classic:
Tournament Final Results--(Nov. 27, 1998)

Because we didn't get over to Manual Arts early enough to see the Gardena v. LA Jordan game, we have no idea who won that one, because they didn't have it at the official scorer's table, and both teams had already vacated the building by the time we arrived.  We're willing to bet that it was Gardena though, because we saw a number of their players who stuck around all day just to watch the other games.  But we really don't know for sure, so if anyone else out there saw the game (or played in it) e-mail us or post it on the message board.

We did get there in time for the LA High v. San Pedro game, and this was not at all what we had expected.  San Pedro quickly recovered from the absolute shellacking they took two nights ago from Manual Arts, when they lost 102-40, and today they managed to pretty much outplay the LA High Romans in just about every way: Shooting, on the boards, hustling and ultimately in the final score.   San Pedro won by a final score of 68-59, but it wasn't nearly that close for most of the game.  Brian Segbefia (6'-1" Sr. SG) of LA did look a bit more in control, but that's probably because he was playing the two and not bringing the ball up as much. He also proved that when he doesn't have to concentrate on feeding others with the ball that he's capable of scoring big-time, hitting for 25 points.  Roger Flowers (6'-3" Sr. SG/SF) didn't score at all, and frankly from what we saw, he might not even have played. Bryan Naff (6'-4" Jr. SG/SF) hit for 11, Richard Garlin (6'-4" Sr. SF) finished with 6, and Obdiel Gonzalez (6'-4" Jr. F) had four.  

Scottie Stern (6'-5" Jr. SG/SF) seemed to be playing reasonably well,  driving and penetrating and showing pretty good moves, that is until the second half, and especially the last 4 minutes of the game. He had the ball stripped during his shot at one point late in the game, with about 3 minutes to play, and his coach was just not happy with his effort getting back on defense, and pulled him from the game. Scottie was upset, and took some time to cool down, and the net result was that Scottie was done for the day.  Scottie had 10 at the half, and only 1 point in the second half, and that might have had something to do with his coach's unhappiness.  

This was not a pretty game to watch,  but there were some notable moments for San Pedro, and Preon Booth played very well, moving with and without the ball, diving for loose balls, and scoring 10. Ian Dixon played reasonably well too and Andrew Gallego led the team playing the point most of the way.

This game was followed by the Hollywood v. Monroe game. Now this was quite a game.  Two teams both similar and pretty much diametrically opposed.  Hollywood is athletic, quick and strong, while Monroe is tall, not so quick and depends on a half court game more than any other team in this tournament.  Yet even with their differences in style, they were remarkably well matched.  At the end of the first quarter the score was 18-20, Hollywood.  At the half Monroe was down still by only two.  At the end of the 3rd period however, Monroe was way down, by 10 points, 24 to 34, and Hollywood had gone to a tightly packed zone in order to force Monroe to shoot over it, and this was not the best choice of defense, although it might have seemed like a pretty good idea to coach Sanders at the time.  Because Monroe started to do just what Hollywood dared it to do, i.e., shoot over it. 

And they got started with the outside shooting when the zone started to extend the floor. At the very end of the third quarter, Eric Serna (6'-7" Sr. F/C) almost had a replay of his game winning shot from Tuesday:   With one second showing on the clock, Serna took the inbounds pass from the right hand side of the arc, and launched one. It didn't drop, but it had everyone in the crowd oohing and remembering what he had done on Tuesday to defeat LA High in the last second of the game.  With 5:26 left to play in the fourth quarter, Monroe had cut the deficit to two on great three point shooting of Alfredo Cuevas (5'-10" So. SG) who finished the night with 9 points, all of them threes and all of them in the final minutes of the game.  Robert Palofax (5'-10" Jr. PG) also played extremely well hitting some key baskets in the closing minutes.  Kenny Johnson (6'-2" Sr. SG) of Hollywood and James Wright  (6'-0" Jr. PG) had two very pretty back to back plays, with Johnson going coast to coast for the layup, and Wright off the penetration dribble drive and layup.  But Monroe's Cuevas answered with yet another three.

With 2:00 minutes to play, the score was 41-43 Hollywood, as Serna hit a turnaround jumper in the lane from about two feet away.   Coach Sanders called a timeout, with 1:41 to play but when they came back, Hollywood turned it over.  Serna took another shot, missed and Leon Robbins hit a very athletic jump stop from about 12' out in the lane to bring the score to 41-45 Hollywood with about 1:00 to play.  But then with 53 seconds to play, Palofax was fouled and went to the line, hitting both to bring it to 43-45.  Cuevas then hit his third three of the night off a steal to give Monroe the lead 46-45 with only 31 seconds to play.  Vahe was then fouled and went to the line with only 23 seconds on the clock, and hit one of two free throws to tie the game up. 

But both teams would get one more chance to bring it back.  Monroe inbounded the ball, brought it up court, and Palofax with the ball was dribbling at the top of the key as time ticked away.  The crowd started counting, 5, 4, 3, as Palofax started his drive, he lost the handle, and Leon Robbins grabbed the ball, and raced across mid-court. . . 2, 1, he fired a shot at the buzzer from about 30' away. Bzzzz. The ball hit the rim and bounced off.  Overtime.

We'd go into detail about the overtime, but really there would be no point.  Hollywood had it's big guys, Vahe Melikyan (6'-0" Sr. F), Leon Robbins (6'-5" Jr. SG), Craig Banks (6'-2" Sr. SG),   Gerald Collins (5'-9 So. PG)  and Eric Hall (6'-5" Sr. F) really stepped it up in the last few minutes and then pulled away in the overtime. Even Jamal Netters (5'-10" Sr. G) who had not seen much action prior to this time.  Whatever magic Monroe had worked during it's last three games just wasn't there tonight, and ultimately Hollywood won going away by 10, 60 to 50. 

The scoring for Monroe was Cuevas with 9 (three threes), Palofax with 10, Serna 18, Jose Sanchez 9, and Cesar Guttierez 4.  For Hollywood, Orville Allen had 4, Vahe Milikyan finished with 10, Jamaal Simpson had one point, Leon Robbins, one of our favorite players on this team had 12, Kenny Johnson, Gerald Collins and Craig Banks each had 4 points, Richard Wright finished with 7, Keilon Maddox had 2, and Eric Hall had 6, and the win was a tribute to Hollywood's unselfish style of play and balanced scoring.

These are two pretty good teams, maybe among the top 16 who will compete for the City Title in February, and we're certain that Monroe and Hollywood will surprise a great many teams in their respective leagues this year in City Section.

Finally, the day was capped by what was supposed to be the "big game" of the week, Manual Arts against Fremont.   Only one problem: As we've noted before, the Fremont team which has shown up for this tournament is no more the Fremont team we profiled earlier than it will be the Fremont team come January if at least the entire frontcourt and backcourt of the team, all 6 ineligible players, can regain their eligibility.

This game was all Manual, in more ways than one. First, Manual had all of their players there, and almost everyone played. Fremont, as we said, was missing a ton of guys, and even two who were eligible and played during the week missed the final game, as LaJay Godbolt and Jeffrey Roberson didn't show up for the game, leaving Fremont with only 8 players, and none taller than 6'-5".  You know it's a skewed effort when, as it was tonight, Moe Colvan (6'-3" Sr. SF/PF) is the leading scorer with 19 points for Fremont.  No offense to Moe, and we think he's a great player, it's just that the nest leading scorer for Fremont had 11 points (Juuan Carter), and then no one else even broke 5 points.

This was never close.  At the end of the first quarter the score was, like last night's game between Manual and San Pedro, 21-4 with Manual ahead.  At the end of the first half, Manual was completely dominant, but Fremont had managed to score a little more, and ithe score was 39-19.  Get this: In the first half Curtis Millage who was the leading scorer for Manual Arts, had 15 points, including one three, two rebounds and two steals. . . for the first half.   Ron Cass had 17 points in the game, and 8 of those were in the first half.   Brandon Moorer had 12 points, 6 in the first half, and Johnny Hardwick also had 4, all in the first half. James Wright also scored five points, a field goal and a three, also all in the first half.  In fact, other than some great action from Curtis and Ron in the second half, none of the other main line players really did anything special in the second half.

Manual didn't just stop playing though and with the game well in command, coach Simpson decided to let everyone else get into the game, and just about everyone scored. . .well, everyone except Charles Edwards (6'-3" Sr. G) who also is one of the nicest young men you'll ever meet. He's a good student, who unfortunately has shifted around schools over the years, first starting in Tennessee as an 8th grader and then moving to LA where he attended USC-Mast magnet as a freshman, then moving to the Inland Valley area, then he just didn't play last year even though he was at Manual.  He's looking at several D-I schools, and is also considering the Air Force Academy.  He's pretty much an unknown and because he also is new to the team, won't get a lot of playing time so he may have to consider a prep school for a year.   Others scoring for Manual were Jason Crow with 4, Deandre Morse with 2, Luis Rodriguez who scored 3, Larry Dillingham, a great athlete who finished with 9, all in the second half, and Mario Roberts who finished with 2.

This was a great tournament, notwithstanding the little unsettling incident we encountered on Wednesday night, but we lived to tell about it, and we were also pleased to see that it didn't deter anyone from attending tonight as the gym had about 500 people watching the final.   We want to thank Wayne Morse, head of security, Coach Randolph Simpson, and most of all L.T. Willis, who first organized the We Care Classic Tournament, and who still takes the time and energy to put on this tournament at great personal expense, both monetary and in personal commitment.  When we asked him to tell us about why he does the tournament, he said "Because I'm from the community and it's my way of giving something back. I referee games throughout the year, but this is a special thing for me. And it's important to give the kids something to strive for, something they can be proud of."

All things considered, we had a pretty good time at the We Care Classic. Great basketball. Great kids and organizers.  See you there next year for the 5th Annual games.

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