Poly Final

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Pasadena Poly Tournament: Blair Wins
Championship--(December 14,1997)

Here's a tournament which wasn't highly visible in the media this last week: The Pasadena Poly Tournament. It featured some great teams from the San Gabriel Valley and Pasadena areas, including Maranatha, St. Margaret's, Pasadena Poly, Blair, La Salle, Mary Star, and featured both boys and girls brackets.

On Saturday night, the Blair High School boys basketball team won its first tournament championship ever under thier current fifth year coach Shaun Peron, when it defeated St. Francis 73-59 in the finals of the Pasadena Poly Tournament. Blair's leading scorers were guard Michael Edwards and center Gerrick White, who each scored 18 points. White and Edwards were both named to the All-Tournament team, and Edwards was named the tournament's MVP.

One of the most impressive aspects of Blair's win is that White is not truly a center, but a guard, who was forced to switch to the post position when Blair's regular center was injured in the first game of the tournament.

Despite being undersized compared to St. Francis, Blair never really struggled in the game. St. Francis' tallest players were 6'-4", not giant by any means, and the height advantage never really seemed to matter and Blair's great swarming pressure d just never let up, forcing turnover after turnover.

Blair jumped out early to a 12-6 lead, with Edwards scoring half those points, but the lead see-sawed a couple of times in the first quarter. In the second quarter, St. Francis' Anthony LaVelle, who scored 22 in the game, hit for 10, while Edwards scored another seven, and the two teams shot even for the quarter with 16 each, and at the half Blair led by 3, 38-35.

But in the third quarter it was all Blair, as they outscored St. Francis 24-14, going on a 16-4 run in the first four minutes of the quarter, and St. Francis just appeared dazed and confused. After that St. Francis never got closer than 10 ppoints.

Blair's leading scorers were, as noted White and Edwards with 18 each. Others were Ferrin Ikner with 17, Kenneth Edwards with 9, Mike Stewart 7, and Brandon Watts with 4. Ikner hit 3 three pointers and Mike Edwards hit for 2.

St. Francis' leading scorers were Anthony Lavelled with 22 and Shaun Scranton with 13. Others included Richard Fields with 10, Tommy Contreras 6, Chenier Johnson 4, Eric Alalay 2, and Charlie Curry with 2.