SoCal High School & Prep Report

Beverly Hills Tourney:
Cleveland v. Agoura--(December 13,1997)

While we were at the UCLA v. Fullerton game tonight, Cleveland High was playing two-time defending Champion Palisades in the title game. We don't know how that one turned out yet, so we'll have to wait until we receive a report from our friends who did attend the game. But in the meantime, its worth reporting on how Cleveland got to the final, specifically the Friday night game against Agoura.

Cleveland beat Agoura 71-63 to reach the finals. While Agoura was considered a fine running and gunning team prior to this game, they simply ran out of steam, and they ran out of one of their leading scorers, Marcus Helfman, who didn't play in order to make an official visit to BYU for football. Helfman had scored 40 points in Agoura's first two games, so he was really missed. This really was a shame, since in Agoura's first two games in the Beverly Hills basketball tournament, Agoura managed to not only keep up with Canoga Park and Hamilton--two teams with running offenses, but also beat them to advance to the semifinals. But against Cleveland, Agoura was simply no match, losing on Friday night. Employing their fullcourt pressure d, Cleveland continued to wear down Agoura, forcing 20 turnovers in the game. While Agoura kept the score within reach, even taking a lead at the half, 35-33 , on a nice j from guard Garrett Lepisto, but the Cleveland swarming and scatter d took over in the third quarter in which Cleveland outscored Agoura 23-15. Cleveland also won the fourth, but just barely 15-13.

Cleveland was led players scored in double figures. Brian Smith had 21 points and 10 rebounds, Kent Dennis had 13 points and 11 assists, Simmagin Smith had 12 points and 12 rebounds and Quante Randolph had 10 points and seven rebounds.

Agoura scorers were Dianella with 6, Kohan with 1, Patterson 11, Lepisto 11, Meyer 13, Huddleston 9, and Saunders 12

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In other semifinals:

Hart defeated Loyola by a single point 50-49 in a ninth place semifinal game. Guard J.T. Stotts hit a three-pointer to give Hart the win with only 16 seconds on the clock. Hart improved its record to 5-2 on the season. They will play Culver City for Ninth-place on Saturday.

In the other ninth place semi-final, Culver City beat Buena 63- 51. Ryan Fay had 21 points in the losing cause for Buena, which fell to 2-5 on the season.

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