SoCalHoops High School News

1st Annual Milken Hill Topper
Tourney: Buckley Wins First Round--(Dec. 8, 1998)

Here's what happened during the first round of the Milken Hill Topper Tournament:

We didn't see the first game of the day between Malibu and Pilgrim, but the score pretty much said it all:  Malibu 56, Pilgrim 32.   So Malibu advanced to the winners bracket and faced Buckley today at 3:30 p.m. at Milken, while Pilgrim played Flintridge Prep at 3:30 p.m. at the Buckley campus just down the road in Sherman Oaks.

In the second game:

Buckley 48, Flintridge Prep 38--Both teams were a bit tight in the first quarter, but Flintridge was a bit tighter, and Buckley's defense held Flintridge Prep to only 3 points in the first quarter of this low scoring game.  How low was the scoring?  At the half, it was 18-18.  But in the second half, Buckley came back smoking and again held FP to single digits (4 points) in the third quarter, while scoring 15 in the third and 15 in the fourth. Alex Clancy had a great game, and he scored 13 points, including three three-pointers, 3 rebounds and one assist. Colin Ward Henninger had 11 ponts and 5 rebounds, one block and two steals. Adam Pastor finished with 8, ponts and three steals.

Freshman point guard David Gale also showed some impressive ball skills, picking up 6 points on two three-pointers, and he had 6 assists, 5 rebounds and one steal. Sasha Rahban had 2 points and two steals, while Jake Scannell pick up 5 points but led all rebounders with 16 boards. Mike Lalazarian fihnished with three points, two rebounds one stal and a block.  The win for Buckley set up the matchup with Malibu which was played on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. at Milken. 

In the third game:

Faith Baptist 51, Oakwood 49--Stephan Grassu made four of six free throws in the fourth quarter and finished with 22 points and Jeremy Lopez, who finished with 5,  hit a clutch three-point shot in overtime to help the Contenders (1-1) win a first-round game in the Milken tournament.  Grassu also had 21 rebounds. Stan Muggrave had 19 points for Oakwood (2-2).  Other scorers for Oakwood were Nick Mark with 4,  Matt Gastier with 5, John Boyd with 3, Will Thomas, a quick little point guard who reminds us of Stanley Thorne, a shooting point who pushes the break well finished with 9, Nick Garrison finished with 8, and Derl Brown had 2.   Other scorers for Faith Baptist were Julio Bautista, who finished with 14 pooints, Lonnie Clayton with 2, David Painter with 3, and Darren Masangkay with 3. .  

In the fourth game:

Well, there are certain advantages to doing the brackets yourself, and no team hosts a tournament hoping to lose, but this was a no-contest, as Milken totally annihilated Southwestern (San Marino) 62-38.  When we left at the half, the score was 48-13.  Bobby Bassman led Milken's scoring with 23. But really.  We just couldn't take it any more, and had to leave at the half.   Southwestern has one really good player,  David Escobar (6'-0" Jr. SG/SF) who was named to the San Gabriel Valley Times All-Star team, and who led all scorers last night with 24 point, and another kid named Kevaughn Bullock (5'-10" Jr. G), who is a decent and capable player, who finished with 10 points, but other than these two guys, they didn't get much support, and Milken was by far the more athletic and better team. Milken only had two players in double figures, but they could have had half a dozen   with more than 10 had they not pulled the starters for the entire fourth quarter.   John Sher had 10 and Steve Taylor finished with 14 points for Milken. Only three others scored for Southwestern, Chu from the line with 1, Lu with 1, and Neposan with 2.   Others scoring for Milken were Hanasab with 6, Tal Aviv with 3, Daniel Greenberg with 4, Raminfar with 6, Adam Blitz finished with 4, Hendlish with 4, Khoubian had four and Paletz had four. 

By and large, with the exception of the Southwestern game, this was a nice start to an ambitious tournament featuring some good D-V and D-IV teams. Oh, and if you're near the intersection of Mulholland Highway and the 405 tomorrow, you'll want to catch the finals.  If you've never seen the Milken campus, it's a brand new, multi-million dollar school, with state of the art facilities, and a really gorgeous gym floor.  Only one problem with the gym: It's also adjacent to a theatre arts building portion of the building  and whoever designed the place knew nothing about capacity crowds at basketball games, or maybe they just weren't expecting any one to come out and watch.  The gym has an entire wall, all 95' of it, with state of the art bleachers, at least 12 rows deep (i.e., it's about 25' high when the bleachers are extended).   The seating is the kind that's fairly comfortable, clean, and best of all it's new.  The bleachers are motorized, but like we said, whoever planned this was thinking "drama" and not "basketball" because when the stands are fully extended, they go out onto the middle of the basketball court.   If they go out to about the sideline, you can get, maybe, three rows of seating.   Which means that you can have about 200 people in the place.  On a good night.

But the games were still good, and if you're close you might want to check this one out.  The tournament concludes on Wednesday with the finals at Milken; the losers bracket will play at Buckley.

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