SoCal High School & Prep Report

24th Annual Father Barry Christmas
Tourney: U of S.D.H.S. Wins--(December 16,1997)

The news from San Diego is hard to come by and the reports are few and far between. But thanks to the University of San Diego High School Dons own web site, maintained by Pat McKinney, word managed to leak out to the northernmost environs of the SoCal area about a tournament which was played last week, in of all places, Sacramento. It was the 24th annual Father Barry Christmas Classic at Jesuit High School in Sacramento, featuring several all-Catholic schools from around California and Arizona.

San Diego won the tournament, as many predicted they would, but they showed that they are more than just a bunch of guys named Walton. Well, at least they showed they can win without one of the Waltons, as Chris did not play due to having injured his back. And they also showed they could pull off a victory without one of their other big guys, but more on that later.

In the first day of the tournament, the Dons opened up against one of the local teams, Christian Brothers, and advanced to the second round by beating them by 19 points, 61-42. In the first quarter, Ron McMillan (6'-6" Sr F) had two dunks and 10 points, and 6 boards. San Diego went on a 10-0 scoring run, and ended the quarter with the score at 18-8.

Even though San Diego was way out in front, McMillan was still playing late in the fourth quarter, and then it happened: McMillan went up for a rebound, was tackled and had his feet knocked out from under him. That wouldn't have been so bad, except that he landed on his head. He was out for about 5 minutes, and there was speculation that it might have been a broken collarbone, but fortunately it turned out to be only a mild concussion, with a deep shoulder bruise. It looked like he was out for the tourney, and possibly longer. With McMillan out, Luke Walton and David Abramowitz took over. Luke had 20 points and 8 boards, 4 assists, and 4 blocked shots. Abramowitz had 15 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds. Kam Walton had 5 blocked shots and 5 rebounds, while Carlos Cong had 5 assists.

In the second round of the Tournament, USDHS played Brophy Prep of Phoenix, AZ. without McMillan, and won 65-57. Brophy was also playing without one of their better players, Junior Mike Schwertley, who went down with an ankle injury in Brophy's 61-57 win over San Francisco St Ignatius.

Abramowitz helped the Dons jump out to an early lead with 10 points, but USDHS was outscored 18-17 by the end of the first quarter. At the half, however, USDHS had recovered a bit, and led 32-25. In the third, Brophy cut the lead to only three, 37-34 just under four minutes remaining. However, Brophy never got any closer, and San Deigo closed out the win, 65-57. Luke Walton had 27 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 blocked shots. Abramowitz had 17 points and 8 assists. Junior Conor Hulburt, playing for McMillan, scored 12 points, and shot 6 for 7 from the field. Brophy scoring was led by Justin Adams, with 18 points and Jonathan Howard with 15.

In the Championship game, the Dons played Bishop O'Dowd, a perennial NorCal power (Frank La Porte, who coached at St. Joseph Alameda was at O'Dowd for years, but that's a whole different story. . .). O'Dowd had just defeated Jesuit in the second round in a slow, low scoring defensive battle by the riduculously low score of 37-32. Just as in that game, O'Dowd managed to keep the game against San Diego a low scoring affair also. The score was 41-38. Oh yeah, San Diego won.

The final was pretty ugly. Each team was charged with a technical against each coach: O'Dowd's Coach Phelps was Teed up with 5:04 left in the third (while USDHS was ahead 27-13), and San Diego Coach Tomey was charged with a technical with 4:43 left in the fourth (San Diego still led, but only by three, 35-32). Just what they did was a bit unclear, but they must have been misbehaving pretty badly.

Amazingly, and despite the injury to his head (or maybe because of it) Ron McMillan also felt well enough to play, and scored 17 points, and had 7 rebounds. Not bad for a guy who was just dropped on his head. He was able to be effective as effective as he was principally because O'Dowd had two or three guys guarding Luke Walton at all times, and thus someone had to be open: And that someone turned out to be McMillan a lot. O'Dowd's game plan was to shut Luke Walton down, and it pretty much worked: He only had 8 points. He did manage 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals, but was not very effective otherwise offensively. But then O'Dowd had been counting on McMillan being back in the lineup. David Abramowitz scored 10 points and 8 rebounds. Great game, not pretty to watch, but the result that most people expected.

The players named to the All-Tournament Team were:

Tournament MVP

Luke Walton, USDHS

All Tournament Roster

Luke Walton---USDHS
David Abramowitz---USDHS
Matt Vella---O'Dowd
Derek Lambeth---O'Dowd
Mike McBrien---Jesuit
Ron Barrow---Jesuit
Jimmy Trico---Brophy
Jonathan Howard---Brophy
Luke Whitehead---St Ignatius
Cesar Smith---Sacred Heart
Emon Graves---Christian Brothers

San Diego will play at the City of Palms Classic in Fort Myers, FL from the 18th through the 22nd of December, and then will travel to the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, SC. We'll be at the Vegas tournament for a while so we might not get the USDHS results for a while. However, when we do, we'll put them up.

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