SoCal High School & Prep Report

Thousand Oaks Tourney: H-W Wins Championship
From Dos Pueblos--(December 13,1997)

What a great game. At least the clock wasn't malfunctioning in this one. Victor Munoz, showing why he's an All-American and McDonald's nominee this year, led H-W back from death's door to beat Shantay Legans and Tafari Pipersberg and the Dos Pueblos team, 77-81 for the T.O. Championship for the third year in a row. And H-W did it this time without the Collins twins. Coach Phil Sherman understood the importance of this game before the start, telling us "We really want this game. We think we're ready, and Shantay and Tafari are playing great. We've worked real hard to get here."

Had they won it would have been the first time in three years that H-W would have lost a game in California (they actually lost a couple last year against Mt. Zion and some others played in Vegas and out of state). And last night, at least for the first quarter, it looked like H-W was going to lose. Big time.

But Greg Hilliard is either the smartest basketball coach alive, or he's just the calmest coach we've seen this year. He never got up from his chair during the drought, and calmly and cooly instructed his players from the sideline, never taking them out of their game, but allowing them to discover their rhythm and shot.

H-W started the usual suspects:

Russell Lakey (5'-11" So. PG)
Alex Minn (6'-1" Jr. G)
Victor Munoz (6'-0" Sr. G)
Pat Biggerstaff (6'-7" Sr. C)
Alex Holmes (6'-4" So. F--255 lbs)

Dos Pueblos started:

ShanTay Legans (5'-9" Jr. PG)
Tafari Pipersberg (6'-1" Sr. SG)
Dave Sears (6'-2" Sr. SG)
Alex Jenkins (6'-6" Jr. F)
Dan Hoefer (6'-6" Sr. C/F)

So this was going to be a matchup of the guards. Shantay guarding Russell Lakey, Victor guarding Tafari. Shantay Legans is a great guard, with some of the best skills of any point we've seen this year. He has a great handle, passes very well, and can put it up or drive to the hole. He's got range from inside, outside and even though he's only 5'-9" he's a very muscular and athletic player, who plays a lot bigger than that. He had just some amazing aerobatic circus shots, driving the lane, making the dish and the layup, and he's certain to be a D-1 prospect soon. In the first quarter he was the offense and the defense for DP, and watching the Lakey-Legans matchup, it was easy to tell that Hilliard had to switch Victor over to ShanTay. Russell was having difficulty getting past Legans, and couldn't find either his shot or his defense in the first quarter. Neither could Victor, and with only 4:30 run off the clock and 3:30 left in the first quarter, H-W trailed 11-2, it's only basket coming off an Alex Holmes layup. Pipersberg, who's a very athletic and smooth shooting guard, with great speed and quickness, managed to airball a shot from the baseline, and H-W rebounded, feeding to Eric Geffner (6'-4" So. F), who was out on the wing and hit a three to close it to 11-5. Shantay then got called for traveling in the lane, and Munoz drove through traffic to hit the jumper for 2, bringing it to 11-7 DP. Lakey then picked up the first of his four fouls, and after Jeremy Archuleta (5'-11" Sr. G) made the two free-throws, H-W trailed 13-7. Dan Kinzer then made a nice little layup in the lane, and it was 13-9. Jenkins scored again for DP to bring it to 15-9 at the end of the quarter. H-W only took 8 shots, but had 12 turnovers and it was looking pretty ugly with DP seemingly dominating the Wolverines.

The second quarter proved to be completely different, and H-W wnent on a shooting exhibition, so that at the half, H-W led by a score of 40-32, outscoring DP 31-17. The big difference: Switch VM to Shantay on D, free up Russell to decoy on the strong side, and let Geffner, Minn and Munoz do the scoring. In the quarter Munoz had 12, Geffner 5, Minn a bunch, including two threes, Holmes had a three and Biggerstaff hit two foul shots. I'm sure we missed a couple, but H-W just got hot. Likewise, Shantay and Tefari got cold, missing a few outside threes and a couple of layups which wouldn't drop for Hoefer. And Hoefer picked up three fouls in the quarter, which didn't help as he would eventually foul-out with more than 7 minutes to go in the fourth.

Legans and Pipersberg came out of the locker room at the half looking either very relaxed or very down; they went to the bench and didn't shoot with the rest of the team during warmups. But you could tell that they were just getting focused, and in the third quarter that focus paid off as Dos Pueblos again outshot H-W 22-18, to bring the score to 54-58 at the end of the quarter. Shantay played incredibly, driving to the lane, getting in Lakey's face at every turn, virtually shutting him down offensively. It wasn't until about a minute to go in the third that Lakey hit what seemed like his first shot, a two pointer to bring the scor to 58-51. Shantay hit this just sweet shot at the buzzer from close to mid-court for a three to bring DP within 4.

Cruch time. Fourth quarter. With 6:25 left to play, DP loses Hoefer, their big guy down low who had just been plugging up Holmes, Kinzer and Biggerstaff all night. Without him in it really was a different game. Holmes scored a couple of important baskets without Hoefer in the way. But the real story behind the win was Victor Munoz, who played smart, tough, and never picked up that fifth foul while managing to stay in Shantay's way just enough to keep DP from closing that 4 point gap. While it looked like H-W was outplaying DP during the fourth, the scoring was actually even, at 23 apiece, and had Hoefer not fouled out, it might have been a different game.

For H-W Minn had 17 points, Holemes had 8, Biggerstaff 4, Lakey 11, Munoz 23, Geffner 13, Kurihawa 3, Kinzer 2.

Dos Pueblos was led by Legans with 29, Jenkins with 14, Pipersberg 11, Sears 8, Hoefer 7, Archuleta 4, and Bruce 4.
We counted at least 14 assists for Legans, and he played very well. I know he was down at the end of the game, but he's got nothing to be ashamed or down about. He's got an amazing knowledge of the game, great skills and we just can't say enough good things about him. Yo, Shantay, send us that e-mail during the season like you promised.

H-W was as we said led by a great performance from Victor Munoz, and even though Russell had an off night, he still managed to get off the 11 points and a couple of assists.

Now if those other guys announcing and writing about the game could just get this right: His name is Geffner, that's G-E-F-F-N-E-R.

It's not "Geefner", which the announcer kept repeating ever time Eric scored, and it's not "Gaffner" like the Times had in the box score, or as the Daily News had in the body of their article. We don't care how you pronounce it though, Eric also played just a great game, with 10 rebounds and some very nice three's at just the right moments. The great thing about him is that he's just a sophomore, so we can all look forward to seeing great things from him for the next few years.

And what's up with the Daily News headline for the game: "MVP Munuz sparks H.W. to T.O. title".

We swear that's what it said. "Munuz".

We knew things were tough over at the Cooke paper, and we know it's on the block, but surely they have a proof reader. If not, we'll volunteer.

Alex Minn also had just a great game, scoring 17 points, a couple on long threes and some nice inside jumpers. He's got very quick hands, and was also playing with four fouls at the end of the game, as were Victor, Eric, and Russell.

So, is Hilliard a genius, or is he just very calm. Take your pick, because it doesn't really matter. The players played the game, and they won it. Congratulations to both teams.

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