SoCal High School & Prep Report

Valencia Tournament Finals: San Fernando
Loses to Compton Centennial--(December 22, 1997)

*Note: For an understanding of why we're uploading this article more than a week late, read our December 23 "Nike Prep Classic" article, and our December 28, 1997 "Titanic Returns" article. This was originally written on Monday, December 22, about games played Friday, December 19. Hope you enjoy it.

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Valencia Tourney Finals: San Fernando Loses to Centennial: (December 22, 1997)

So here we are sitting out in the middle of the Eastern Pacific (that would be just off the coast of Mexico), and what should happen but the hard drive on our trusty portable crashes. First day, and all of the articles and stuff that we had written ahead of time, and planned to edit while sitting out on the deck of the ship, relaxing in the warm Mexican sun are just memories now, and the panic over all the stuff that we won't get uploaded to the site during this trip starts to set in.

Luckily, we found this "utilities" disk (included with the portable) which has a DOS (remember that?) text editor, and with it, we can still get some stuff written up, save it to floppy disk, convert it later to html code and the upload it to the site when we get back to LA. At least some things will get accomplished. It will only be later than we had planned.

Oh well, guess it's time to have another margarita.

Without having to worry about uploading and downloading, or finding a hotel with modem access, we've got plenty of time to concentrate on the important stuff. Like drinking, swimming, eating, and sleeping. But here's some stuff anyway.

First things first: Basketball.

Last Friday night, December 19, 1997, San Fernando lost in the Championship game of the Valencia Tournament to Compton Centennial, in overtime 75-73. Marquis Poole of Compton Centennial hit two free throws with about 45 seconds left in regulation, to tie the game at 65-65. Luis De La Rosa had an opportunity to get off the last shot in regulation, but his three point attempt (really unneccesary) went long as the buzzer sounded to send the game into overtime. In the overtime, it was all Centennial, as they outscored the Tigers 10-8. Marquis Poole finished with 22 points; Arturo Jones had 11 points and 10 rebounds, while Brian Jones had 15 points and 8 rebounds. Sims had 9, and Williams, Douglas and Schienk each had 4 points. For San Fernando, Devin Montgomery had 21 points, Lee Purnell had 9, while De La Rosa had 13 pts. Sean Atkins had 6, while Bryan Atkins had 8; Tubbs had 4.

San Fernando Coach Mike Cady had been worried about his teams'stamina and focus before the game, given the fact that as of Friday night, the team had played 10 games in 14 days. "I was worried about this game; I looked at our players before the game started, and could see that they were tired. I just hoped we'd hang on and get out of here with the win," Cady said after the game. So San Fernando's 10 game win streak came to an end, and Centennial won the tournament. With the loss, San Fernando's record dropped to 10-1, not bad by any measure, and Centennial improved to 7-1.

Congratulations to the San Fernando Tigers and to the Champion Centennial Apaches.

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In several other games played in the Valencia tournament Friday:

The biggest shocker came in the fifth place game in which Montclair Prep, thought by many, including SoCalHoops to be possible Division V contenders this year, lost to Crespi 63-60 in the final seconds of the game on two free throws by Andy Owings. In addition to Owings' shot, James Spratt and Tim McDonough also each made a couple of free throws to bring Crespi back into a game that should have been Montclair's.

The Crespi defense played great, pressing and trapping the generally larger Montclair team, and very effectively held Montclair's standout three point shooter Rocky Steryo to only 14 points on five of thirteen shots from the field. Jed Hall, Montclair's new big man transfer from Virginia, who is being talked about as possible material for either CSUN and Bobby Brasswell, USC (although probably not with the signings that took place this last fall), and possibly Cal, finally came alive after struggling at the beginning of the pre-season, and he had 16 points and nine rebounds. Jed, as you all know, is from Virginia, and we sense that he's probably been a bit homesick during the holidays, and that may have contributed to his rather bumpy start this season. He played well in the game, but it wasn't enough, particularly with Steryo Steryo having an off night. Carlise Clark also had a decent game, driving and dishing and he racked up 10 points for the Mounties. Montclair dropped to 6-3 on the season, while Crespi is still struggling with a losing record but improves to 3-5. Our Congratulations to Coach Dick Dornan and to the Crespi Celts on the win, and condolences to Howard Abrams and the rest of the Mounties.

In the third place game, Valencia beat the visiting Birmingham Braves. The score was almost irrelevant and the game was never really in doubt after the first quarter; at the end of the first it was 17-17, but that was as close as it ever got. In the second quarter, Valencia just turned up the heat to a point that Birmingham absolutely wilted, and Valencia outscored the Braves 21-10 in the quarter,to lead at the half 38-27. In the third quarter, Valencia again outpaced the Braves 22-18, and in the fourth, they hammered them 18-11.

For those who don't want to add it up it was Valencia 78, Birmingham 65.

Birmingham only had two players in double figures, Stanley Fletcher with 13, and Emmanual Evans with 19.

Valencia had four players in double figures: Jerrohn Jordan (6'-8" Sr. C) had 14; Eskias McDaniels (6'-4" Jr. PF) had 16; Fabian Leon (6'-7" Sr. PF) had 14, and Matt Pawlack (6'-5" Sr. F) had 16. Others scoring for Valencia were Jason Richardson (6'-0" Sr. SG) with 2 points, Mark Sisson (6'-0" Jr. SG) with 9, and Manuel White (6'-3" So. F) with 4 points.

Congratulations to Valencia for the third place win.

In the Seventh place game, Antelope Valley defeated Ventura 83-77; Roger Price had 23 points for the Antelope Valley Antelopes (catchy name isn't it?).

In the Ninth place game, which was also the consolation championship, Santa Paula beat Calabasas 67-60. Spencer Harriton (formerly of LA's Team Maccabi) had 22 points while Jason Miller (another Team LA Maccabi player) and Ghoreishi both had 13; Joey Riccio, whom we hadn't seen prior to this game, just had played just a great game, and he scored 39 points. Even though Calabasas lost, they look like they might be a team to watch in the Frontier League.

In the Eleventh Place game, Ridgecrest Burroughs beat Granada Hills 57-52, while in the 13th place game Quartz Hill beat La Salle convincingly 71-59.

Finally, in the 15th place game, Littlerock defeated Hollywood 59-51.

Congratulations to all the Valencia Tournament teams, players and coaches, and congratulations to Compton Centennial,the 1997-98 Champions of the Valencia Invitational Holiday Classic.

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