SoCal High School & Prep Report

Bell-Jeff Tournament: Grant and Arenas
Hammer the Host--(December 29, 1997)

Still more catching up. And as a Lancer alum, we're pretty proud of Gil Arenas, whom Michael Miller of West Coast Hoops has picked as one of the top junior backcourt men on the west coast this year. Having seen Gil play more than a few times, we agree, and we'd certainly have to rate him as one of the best, if not currently the best junior guards in SoCal. While he may have once been a well-kept secret in SoCal, the word is really out about him now. Don't miss the chance to see him.

In the third place game in the Bell-Jeff Tourney, held last Monday, December 22, 1997 (you mean there was also a championship game too?) Grant just destroyed Ruben Douglas and Mike West by a score of 112 to 66. That's right, the Lancers were only 20 points short of doubling the score against Arizona-bound Douglas & Co. My, how quickly things can change for a team when four of its top players move or transfer. Kent Dennis, SOS.

Arenas (6'-3" Jr. PG/SG/SF/PF) did it all against Bell-Jeff, hitting for a school record 45 points. Gil was coming off one of his worst performances of the year in Grant's loss to Pasadena Marshall in the semifinals, scoring only 12 points. But he was back with a vengance in this one. Arenas scored 13 points in the first quarter, including a steal and the layup which put Grant ahead 33-7 at the end of the quarter.

Arenas scored his first quadruple double of the season, getting 12 assists, 10 boards and 10 steals to go along with his 45 points.

Grant's previous scoring record was held by Danny Enowitz (Reseda Coach Dave's brother, who also played at Grant) with 41 points in 1987, which was tied by Ronald Patterson in 1995.

Arenas and Douglas pretty much went at it head to head for most of the game, and Douglas came away with 33 points. But as Grant coach Howie Levine said after the game, "The best thing against this game was that Gil recovered, and did it against arguably one of the best guards in the region." But Levine, always pointing out the obvious, remarked to some reporters, "Look at the score. . . you guys figure out who won this one."

No doubt, Grant did. And they did it without much assistance from the streaky Adir Levy, who only had 6 points. Mike Yildiz (5'-11" So. G) had 18, while Rhashad Winston (5'-10" Jr. G) had 6. Others scoring for Grant were Ray Lipscomb (5'-8" Jr. G) with 2, LaRon Harris (6'-2" Sr. F) with 6 points, Krishna Evans (6'-4" So. C) with 11 points, Justin Buttikofer (6'-1" Jr. F) with 8, and Asatyr Bagaryan (6'-0" Sr. F) with 2 points.

For Bell-Jeff, this just again demonstrated that 2 on 5 isn't going to get the job done, especially against the area's better teams. Besides Douglas' 33 points, Mike West (6'-6" Sr. C/F) had 14, Chris Jones (6'-0" Fr. PG) had 8, Patrick Thornell (6'-3" Jr. F) had only 2, Lawrence Jenkins (6'-4" So. PG) had only 1, while Jeremy Schultz (5'-10" Sr. SG) had 3, and Chris Equia (5'-9" Sr. G) had 3 points.

Grant improved it's record to 6-4, while Bell Jeff dropped to the same 6-4 on the season. But as Levine said, you decide which team is better. At least for now.

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