VAA304

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Southern Section Playoffs: Division V-AA
Santa Clara Defeats Chadwick 58-53--(March 4, 1998)

We've already covered the other Division V-AA Semifinal, a heartbreaking loss--or a tremendous upset--depending on your perspective, in which Montclair Prep lost to Pacific Hills by one point, 82-83 in triple overtime. The details of that game can be found here.

In the other semifinal game played in Division V-AA, Santa Clara beat Chadwick 58-53 in a hard fought game played at Peninsula High in Rolling Hills Estates last night. For Santa Clara, they've been here before. In fact the Saints (14-12), will get another chance to defend their title and possibly win their 15th championship in 40 seasons under Coach Lou Cvijanovich. By grabbing the win, Pacific Hills and Santa Clara will match up for the title Friday at the Bren Events Center on the UC Irvine campus. The game begins at 6:00 p.m., which of course presents somewhat of a scheduling problem if you'd like to also be at the Westchester v. Fremont game at the Los Angeles Sports Arena for the City Championship game in Divsion 4-A. We'll leave the choice up to you, because either game will be great.

Santa Clara has been a team in constant transition this year, struggling for much of the year without star shooting guard-small forward Nick Jones, one of the top players in SoCal, who broke his foot on the first day of practice. On Tuesday, Jones was back, playing in only his third game of the season, and he finished with 17 points and seven rebounds. B.J. Ward, Santa Clara's other standout forward, had 18 points and six rebounds. Center Ryan McGill finished with 14 points, including making all eight of his free-throw attempts, an amazing feat for a guy who's one of the worst shooters on the team.

The game was close the entire way through the first half, and Santa Clara only led by one point at the half, 30-29. In the third, behind the shooting of Jones and McGill, Santa Clara extended the lead to 54-41. Chadwick (15-5), was led by Ryan Maier with 18 points. Chadwick could not get any closer than five points in the fourth quarter despite making 40.8 % of its shots. Santa Clara however, made 59.4% of its shots from the field, hitting on 22 of 37 attempts. Chadwick was not shooting well from the perimeter, hitting only seven for 24 on three-point attempts. Santa Clara was not much better on it's three point shooting: Santa Clara made just three of 12 three-point attempts. McGill and Ward finished with five assists each for Santa Clara and Scott Sorich had six points on two three-pointers.

As Coach Lou Cvijanovich told the Los Angeles Times after the game, "It's nice to make it to the final four, but the final two is even better."

The final should be a great matchup, as these teams are very similar in size, quickness and shooting ability, and it will be great fun to watch Conrad Adamczak matchup against Ward or McGill, and the Pacific Hills guard combo of Abrahams, Owens and Pagan matchup against Jones and the other Santa Clara guards.