SoCal High School & Prep Report

Thousand Oaks Tourney:
H-W Beats Grant--(December 12,1997)

What a shooting contest. We were right in our predicition: This great game turned into a scoring-fest between Grant's Gilbert Arenas and Adir Levy on the one hand and Harvard-Westlake's McDonald's All-American nominee Victor Munoz (6'-0" Sr. PG), and Russell Lakey (5'-11" So. PG/SG).

Between the four players, they had more than 90 points.

Harvard-Westlake won this one 86-79, in a high scoring affair which see-sawed several times and saw some huge scoring runs by both teams as the lead changed hands.

In the first quarter, it was Arenas and Levy who took off first, scoring 19 points between them (Arenas 14, Levy 5), and more than two thirds of Grant's total of 25 for the quarter. At the end of the first quarter the score was H-W 17, Grant 25.

But in the second quarter, H-W took off, outscoring Grant 28-12, and at the half the score was Harvard-Westlake 45, Grant 37. But before the half ended, Arenas picked up his 3rd foul and had a lot of time to adjust himself to sitting down. The third foul was picked up on an offensive charge when Arenas slammed into Eric Geffner, who can take a charge with the best of them. At the end of the half, Arenas had racked up 18 points, Adir Levy 9, and between them they had 27 of Grant's 37 points. For H-W, Victor Munoz shot 7 for 11 from the field, had 3 steals and 2 assists in the half, while Russell Lakey is really shaping up as the offense on this year's Wolverine team: He shot 8 for 12 during the half, hitting 2 for 2 from the line, and had 20 points in the first half. Between Munoz and Lakey, they had 34 of H-W's 45 points. Adding to H-W's scoring were Pat Biggerstaff (6'-7" Sr. C/PF) with 6 and Alex Minn (6'-1" Jr. SG) who had 5.

In the third quarter, Harvard Westlake was outscored, but only slightly, 17 to 22, and so the score was narrowed to 62-59, just a three point lead. In the fourth, Grant scored the first two, and then Harvard-Westlake went on an amazing 10-2 run to bring the score to 72-61, behind the great shooting of Victor Munoz and Lakey. The teams then traded several baskets and with the score at 79-76, Russell Lakey was fouled, and made one of two to bring the score to H-W 80, Grant 76.

H-W stretched the lead a bit when Lakey stole the ball on the inbounds off the dribble, and went the length of the court for a layup, to bring the score to 82-76. On Grant's next possession, Harvard stopped the ball, forced the turnover and Lakey was fouled going to the basket, sinking both shots. Score 84-76.

Grant then got the ball back, and Grant's Michael Yildiz then hit another three point shot bring the score to 84-79. Grant called a timeout, and with only 7 seconds remaining on the clock, Alex Holmes inbounded the ball to Victor Munoz on a full length of the court pass, and Munoz scored, to make the final 86-79 as time ran out.

Interestingly, Grant's scoring just seems unbalanced, while H-W's scoring, which is perhaps just as unbalanced doesn't seem so odd. Maybe it's just that H-W is winning more with it's scorers. We don't know. But Yildiz, who is normally a fine shooter, didn't score at all in the first half, had 4 in the 3rd and 7 in the fourth for 11 total including the big three late in the game. He's a fine scorer, but Howie Levine is going to have to coax more scoring out of him and the rest of the Lancers if Grant is going to make any serious runs this year. Likewise, Adir Levy, a big contributor and a fine player and former Maccabi Medal winner in Seattle this last summer, did very well in the first half, but just about disappeared in the second half.

For H-W, Biggerstaff had 11 points and 6 rebounds; Eric Geffner had a three pointer, 7 boards, 2 steals and 2 assists. Alex Holmes had 10 points, all in the second half, and shot 4 for 5 from the field and 2 for 2 from the line, with 6 boards, a steal and three assists. Todd Kurihawa (5'-10" Jr. PG), only had 3 points, struggling a bit tonight and only shooting 1 for 6, while Dan Kinzer (6'-7" Jr. F) the volleyball playing transfer, did not score, and we're wondering what's going on with him. He was highly touted at the beginning of the season, has the height and the good hands of a volleyball player, and seemed to have pretty good footwork from what we saw of the Bell-Jeff scrimmage. We're suspecting that he's either hurt or playing sick, but we'll know more tomorrow. John Karavas (5'-9" So. SG) had only one three pointer, going 1 for 6.

Lakey is da man! He is becoming a one man show for the Wolverines. Collins who? This kid can dish, drive, but is best when he's creating his own shot. He's very fast, has a quick first step and nice crossover, and it seems like Hilliard's just letting him take the ball and run with it. It's going to be fun to watch him just get better and better. He's just a sophomore.

And speaking of getting better and better, Arenas has improved greatly from last year. He's just a great player, who will also only get better. He's simply deadly from outside, has good quickness, can create off the dribble and has such an excellent three point shot that sometimes it barely ripples the net as it goes through. Ok, so we like him; he is a very fine player.

Harvard-Westlake advances to the Tournament Championship and will meet Dos Pueblos and the Shantay Legans crew tonight (Friday) at 8:00 pm at Thousand Oaks High.

Grant will play in the third place game against Newbury Park at 6:30.

The 5th place game will be played at 5:00 and the 7th place game will be played at 3:30 pm.

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