SoCal High School & Prep Report

Westlake High Tourney: Update #3--(December 11,1997)

We're trying to decide which of the two Conejo Valley tourney's we'll go see Friday night: Westlake or Thousand Oaks. T.O. will be featuring two great games, Dos Pueblos against Newbury Park at 6:30 pm, and in the finals Grant will take on Harvard-Westlake at 8:00 pm.

But Westlake has been featuring some pretty good play from the teams participating as well, and that's especially true for the Moorpark High team which Wednesday night beat Royal High 73-56 in a game which saw Kevin Lawrence and Keith Donahue of Moorpark combine for 56 points between them, equalling the number of points scored by the entire opposing team. While some would say that this kind of performance simply represents unbalanced scoring, we'd say instead that it was one of those games where not one, but two players were simply in a "zone".

Lawrence a senior 6'-5" forward scored 31 points and Donahue, a 6'-2" guard had 25. They were simply unstoppable in the second and third quarters, when between them they scored 44 of the 50 points scored by Moorpark. They dunked, they passed, and played a little two on five, and at one point in the third Moorpark led by as many as 23 points.

"We've been playing together for so long now that it's like he's my little brother," Lawrence said after the game. "Sometimes I think we know each other better than we do ourselves." Royal, which dropped to 2-3 with the loss, narrowed the deficit to 68-56 with 1:14 left in the game, but simply couldn't stop Moorpark. Moorpark outscored the Highlanders, 24-9 in the third quarter. Royal, which beat Poly, 81-65, on Tuesday, led Moorpark, 17-9, after the first quarter, but Lawrence and Donahue just exploded in the second, going on the 44 point spree.

Interestinly, both Donahue and Lawrence were held to only three points between them in the first quarter; but after they got going, they scored scored 22 of the Musketeers' 26 points in the second, and Moorpark led by a 35-27 score at the half.

So, this game just makes the decision that much harder. Thousand Oaks or Westlake. Thousand Oaks or Westlake. . .

In other Westlake games from Wednesday:

Westlake beat Van Nuys easily 64-47, as Jake DeGennaro scored 21 points, and Joey Cuppari had 18 to lead the host Warriors in scoring for their second game in a row. DeGennaro in only a 5'-9" junior, but managed to get 17 points in a 69-68 cliffhanger over Calabasas on Tuesday. Cuppari (6'-1" Sr. SG) had 14 on Tuesday. Westlake outscored Van Nuys 21-8 in the first quarter, and led at the half 44-22 at the half. The third quarter didn't get much better for Van Nuys, even though the scoring was almost even with Westlake only outscoring by 2, 14-12. Abe Morabbi had 16 points for Van Nuys, which is winless at 0-4 this season. Morrabi had 30 points Tuesday in Van Nuys' 76-72 overtime loss to Saugus on Tuesday.

Other's scoring for Van Nuys were Santos 4, Jackson 2, Nava 2, Badadiong 3, Hones 4, Josh Brody 2, Mehta 4, Truong 8 and Long 2. In addition to DeGennaro and Cuppari for Westlake, other scorers were Stewart with 7, Pullen with 4, Mosbergen 3, Howard 5, Jacques 5, and Seidman 4.

Westlake, which was 3-1 with the win advanced in pool play, and will play Saugus on Thursday night.

In another pool play game in the Westlake Tournament, Kennedy beat Poly in a City Section matchup against cross-Valley rivals, by a score of 61- 59. With six seconds left, Armin Shaverdian of Kennedy threw a length of the court pass to Nana Gbewonyo, who lost control of the ball. Montell Duhon came up with the ball and hit a reverse layup as time expired for the Kennedy win and to avoid the overtime. Ellis Richardson, who didn't play in Poly's 81-65 loss to Royal on Tuesday because he showed up midway through the first quarter, scored 17 points for the Poly Parrots, who dropped to 1-3 on the season, while Kennedy improved to 3-0. Kim, Duhon and Trenton Doss each scored 14 points for Kennedy.

And in the last of the games in this Tournament played Wednesday, Calabasas beat Saugus 58-48. The Calabasas Coyotes went on a 17-0 run to take control in the fourth quarter, but trailed 21-3 in the second quarter. Calabasas managed to come to it's senses and outscored Saugus, 55-27 the rest of the way game . Former LA Maccabi standout player Spencer Hariton scored 22 points for Calabasas, while Huton Ghoreishi had 12 points. Matthew Bradley scored 15 points for Saugus. Calabasas improved its rather dismal start by brining it's season record to 1-2, while Saugus dropped below .500 and is now 3-4.

We'll probably end up at the T.O. Tourney, but may stop by just to take a look before going over to T.O. High on Friday. See you there and we'll have a report after the games.

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