lasalle semis

SoCal High School & Prep Report

La Salle Tournament: Monday's Semifinals--(December 30, 1997)

We already posted the tournament schedule for today, Tuesday, and by the time you read this the Championship game will have been played, and either Montclair Prep or Temple City will be the champions. But to get there, they had to play Monday in the semifinals, and since they did, you should at least know what happened. So here it is:

Rocky Steryo scored 31 points and Montclair Prep dominated Notre Dame, 88-44, in one of the Championship semifinals of the La Salle/Temple City boys' basketball tournament Monday night. The Mounties, who improved to 10-3 with the win, and who are ranked ninth in the region by the LA Times, and tenth by the Daily News, limited Notre Dame to 14 points in the second half. This was a terrible game for Notre Dame, and with this game, we'd have to revise our estimates of the predicted finish among the Mission League teams. Right now, we'd have to pick it pretty much even between Harvard-Westlake, Loyola and Chaminade, and on any given day, we'd probably go with H-W, just because they've been there before and have the senior leadership and talent to do it again. But you didn't hear that from us. No siree. And actually Crespi is right behind, knocking on the door, getting better and better.

A few days ago, the Daily News did a piece on Notre Dame, with some quotes from Rob DiMura, the Knights' coach, telling us all that the team is beginning to gel now that the football players are back on the squad, but only when the team has time to practice. Well, Notre Dame better practice some more. The Knights, who've played 10 games in the last two weeks, and are 6-4 after the loss, did not make a single field goal in the fourth quarter, and only had 6 free throws during the final quarter. Notre Dame was led by Joe Donnelly with 15 points, while Chris Williams had 12.

For Montclair, Jules Thompson added 18 points and 17 rebounds, while Kevin Bentley had 10, Jed Hall had 9, Michah Cohen had 9, Carlese Clark score 6 and had 7 assists and 6 steals, as Geoff Hull added 5 points.

Montclair Prep will face Temple City, a 59-58 winner over Pasadena Marshall, at 7:30 tonight in the championship game at La Salle.

Temple City (7-5) set up the championship game on a Ryan Salcido free throw with only two seconds left on the clock. Temple City Coach Rich Hollinger later admitted after the game that his team probably shouldn't have won the game. "This was an unbelievable game. Marshall is really good. When you look at the two teams, I'd have to say they look like the better team." TC trailed most of the way through the game, but managed to stay close long enough to be able to pull off the win in the final seconds. With the game tied at 58, Marshall's Brandon Marshall managed to somehow foul Salcido, who was attempting to get the rebound on a shot by TC's Chad Heng. Salcido missed the front end, but then made the second one as the crowd went nuts.

With the loss, Marshall (9-4) will play Notre Dame, and we're predicting an impressive Marshall victory.

In other La Salle/Temple City tournament games:

Harvard-Westlake 97, Franklin 78:

The Wolverines dished out a team-record 30 assists in a consolation-bracket victory. Victor Munoz and Russell Lakey each scored 24 points for Harvard-Westlake, which improved to 11-2, and which is ranked No. 5 in the San Fernando Valley region by the LA Times, and No. 4 by the Daily News. Munoz, who had 10 assists, made 11 of 14 shots. Lakey, who had eight assists, made 10 of 15 shots. John Karavas had 6 points, while Ike Udeze, playing for what we think might have been the first time in a tournament game this year, had 2. Rob Kurihawa had 2 points, and always energetic and steady Eric Geffner had 7. Chad Garson had eight points, including two three pointers. John Kinzer had 4 points, while Pat Biggerstaff had 6. Alex Holmes, the "space-eater" had 14 points, and played a tremendously good game again. We really like the way this guy plays, and just loved him in Vegas.

The win for Harvard put them against Reseda today in the consolation fifth place game at 4:30 pm. Reseda for it's part, got to the fifth place game by beating the host La Salle team 66-56. Jaime Sibrian had 19 points and Victor Koopongsakorn added 18 for the Regents (4-6) in the consolation semi.

And finally, El Monte beat Village Christian 75-74. Marcus Coria scored 21 points for the Lions (5-8), including two free throws in the final 15 seconds to secure a triple-overtime consolation victory. Paul Tait had 32 points and 10 rebounds for Village Christian (3-6).

We'll have the finals up tomorrow.