SoCal High School & Prep Report

Southern Section Playoffs: Division I-A
Glendora Defeats Pacific 56-50 For Title--(March 8, 1998)

Top-seeded Glendora (30-1) claimed its third CIF crown since 1989 while second-seeded Pacific (22-9) was handed a defeat in its first-ever finals appearance, a bitter loss to Pirate coach Scott Smith and his players because most folks didn't give them a chance to win. We don't know about most folks, but we thought Pacific was one of the more exciting teams we'd seen this year. And because both teams will advance to the State Regional playoffs, you'll get another chance to see them both again.

The LA Times today wrote that "Glendora's experience playing in championship games, and playing in large venues, paid off Saturday night against San Bernardino Pacific in a 56-50 victory before 8,282 in the Southern Section Division I-A championship game at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim"

The Times is only partially right about their observation. Glendora does have experience in Championship games. True. And they've played in large houses before. But they sure don't have a lot of experience playing before close to 8,500 screaming, shouting, pounding fans, at least not in large arenas. In the John Wooden High School Invitational in early December, they played in the 5:30 game before a couple of hundred people (and their band) at the Pond. There were maybe 500 people in the stands for the 5:30 game that night, if you want to be really generous. The two schools that played that game, Ayala and Glendora had pretty big marching bands which came along for the ride. If you want to read our report of that early game, just to see how far the Glendora team has come, here's the link to the report.

Then again in January, Glendora played Bell-Jeff in the 4th Annual MLK classic. We didn't write a report of that game, because it didn't get started until about 10:00 p.m., and didn't finish until almost midnight; seven other games had been going on since 9:00 am that day, and we were just too exhausted to stay, and so were the other 8,000 or so who had come to watch the Westchester-Dominguez game. By the time the Dons had beaten the Comets, Glendora and Bell-Jeff pretty much had Pauley all to themselves. Along with two officials, and maybe 20 or so fans.

Finally, in the Nike Extravaganza III, Glendora did it again, playing at the Bren Center in the last game, against a team from Beaverton, Oregon. And because this one followed the Dominguez v. Oak Hill contest, and the Mater Dei upset of St. Patrick's (then rated No. 1 in the US in some polls), most people were burned out when 9:30 rolled around, and simply left. So Glendora had the place pretty much all to itself. Again.

So they were used to the big arena. But the crowd, that's another story, although it didn't seem to bother Casey Jacobsen at all.

Pacific, the team which nobody gave a fighting chance to before this game started, surprised Glendora repeatedly. Pacific jumped to a 7-0 lead, led 15-13 after the first quarter and trailed only 26-25 at halftime. In the third quarter Glendora outsocred pacific 15-8, but Pacific came back again to cut the lead to 9, 49-40 with 4:24 left to play, and then finally in the fourth quarter with only 1:30 to go, the Pirates cut the lead to a single point 51-50 on a basket by Chaun Ballard. But Casey Jacobsen, who thought he "didn't play well" still managed to hit for 37 points in the game. While that's 9 points off his average of 46 points in each of the four previous playoffs, and his average of 50 in the last two contests, 37 is still pretty impressive, and anything other than a "so-so" performance. It's damn good.

Following Ballard's shot which brought the score to within one for Pacific, Jacobsen scored on an inside shot with 1:09 to go to move the lead back to three. Pacific's Chris Smith then was called for traveling. James Burries of Pacific then missed two free throws after being fouled, with 32.8 seconds remaining. Cedric Clark grabbed the rebound on the second miss, but was pressured to step out of bounds by Glendora's Dominic DeGrassi. Jacobsen was then fouled twice on the next two possessions, and he made three out of four free-throws for the final margin of victory in the closing seconds.

Despite his 40-percent effort from the field, Jacobsen still managed to pretty much single-handedly carry Glendora to the win. In fact, only three other Glendora players scored at all. offense that received points from just three other players. He rebounded from a 4-of-14 first-half performance to score 23 points in the second half, including a pair of free throws that gave Glendora an insurmountable 55-50 lead with 20.9 seconds left. He shot 10 for 25 overall, and hit 16 of 21 from the charity stripe.

And even though most would credit Jacobsen with the win, he did have some help from a whole team of players. As Pacific's Cedric Clark told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, about Jacobsen's scoring success, "He shoots a lot." But when asked why Glendora won, Clark told the Inland Valley Bulletin, "His team. They work harder than he does."

And that team yesterday also consisted of twins Chris and Chad Clark. Chris had 10 points and seven rebounds and Chad added eight rebounds, seven points and four assists helping to fill in for injured point guard Earl Sanchez. Glendora outrebounded Pacific, 35-26. "Chad handled the ball, rebounded, scored and stood up very unselfishly and found a way to win," Glendora's coach Mike LeDuc said. Pacific's coach Smith still couldn't let one statistic slide: Jacobsen attempted just four fewer free throws (21) than the entire Pirates team.

And since it's possible that these teams might (depending upon the bracketing which will be released today) see each other again in the Regional Playoffs leading up to the State Championship game, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin had some choice quotes from each of the teams, just to incite a little bit of continuing bad blood. Here's a sampling:

Pacific's coach Scott Smith on Casey Jacobsen:

"I think he does a very good job, but I also think he travels every time he catches the ball with that first big step. I thought they (the officials) protected him."

Casey Jacobsen, of the Pirates' style of play after being pinched, grabbed, and twice poked in the eye:

"That was nothing I haven't seen before," he said. "They were trying to get into my head, but I know if I can stay mentally tough I'll be fine. I knew if I just kept shooting that streaks could come at any time."

A hard fought game, and a well-won victory. The final scoring for Glendora was Brown with 2, Chris Clark 10, Chad Clark 7, Casey Jacobsen 37. For Pacific the scoring was done by Philyaw with 2, Smith with 14, Hall 2, Burries 9, Huff with 6, Weber 2, and Chaun Ballard with 15.

Congratulations to Glendora, the Division I-A CIF Southern Section Champions for 1997-98, and to the runner-up, San Bernardino's Pacific Pirates. Both teams advance to the State Regional Playoffs. We'll have the bracketing later today

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