SoCal High School & Prep Report

Beverly Hills Tournament:
Cleveland Wins Championship--(December 14,1997)

The Championship Game in the Beverly Hills Invitational Tournament was played last night at Beverly Hills High School. We couldn't be there due to comittments to be at the UCLA game, where the Bruins whacked the Titans of Cal State Fullerton, racking up 120 points in the game (who do they think they are, TCU?). But we've gotten several reports from friends and correspondents who were there.

And not surprisingly, Cleveland won, 66-59.

Cleveland is led this year by someone who shoulda, coulda, mighta been playing with Ruben Douglas at Bell-Jeff, helping Bell-Jeff to an Arroyo tournament championship, instead of the second place finish Bell-Jeff ultimately achieved. That someone would be Ken Dennis (6'-3" Sr. F), who transferred to Cleveland for reasons which are still not entirely clear. But that doesn't matter as last night, Dennis racked up 33 points as the game's high scorer. Just think, if he, Ruben, and Mike West had combined their scores last night, Bell-Jeff would have won the Arroyo Championship by scoring 101 points.

But that's fantasy, and Cleveland's win was a definite dose of reality for the Palisades group, which had won this tournament two years in a row.

Dennis was truly the player of the game, hitting 13 of 14 free throws, including going 5 for 6 in the final minute of the game, at a crucial moment when it looked like Palisades might come back, and Cleveland was only leading 59-61. Dennis also made 3 for 5 on his three point, including two during a 15-0 run by Cleveland in the second and third quarters.

At Bell-Jeff, Dennis was pretty much a second choice to Douglas; little did he know (or maybe he did) when he transferred that Kenny Esteves also wouldn't be back. Maybe he was resentful that Douglas was getting all the publicity and had signed at Arizona. Maybe he felt he needed to go out on his own with a new team. Well, he did that and now he's demonstrating just how good Cleveland can be.

Cleveland trailed by one at the end of the first quarter, 12-13. But in the second quarter, Cleveland just shut the door, outscoring Pali 20-9 to take a 10 point lead into the locker room at the half, 32-22. In the third quarter, Cleveland stretched that lead by one point, outscoring Pali 18-17. And even though Cleveland technically "lost" the fourth quarter scoring 16-20, the four point improvement still left a 7 point gap which Pali never closed as time ran out.

Congratulations to Cleveland on being this year's Beverly Hills Invitational Basketball Tournament Champions.

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