hw 203

SoCal Prep & High School Report

Mission League: Loyola Latest To
Upset Harvard-Westlake--(February 3, 1998)

Twice in one season. It's been more than 5 years since that's happened. In fact it may have been more than 5 years since H-W was last defeated twice in the same season by Loyola High in Mission League play.

Well, it happened last night as we told you in a brief note. Loyola 62, Harvard -Westlake 59,

And, as we told you last night, it's also true that the Loyola Cubs have snapped the Woverines' 40-game home winning streak. My, oh my, how quickly things can change in one season.

We've already related the end of the game scenario as it was described to us by our sources at the game, which involved H-W being down by only one point 60-59 with less than 30 seconds to play; after Lakey's made basket, he steals the inbounds pass, and passes to Alex Holmes who is called for an intentional offensive foul (a pretty unusual call if our sources are correct) so Loyola goes to the line shooting two and gets possession of the ball. The Cubs make them both, and so with only 17 seconds to play, Loyola leads 62 to 59, and ultimately H-W loses the game.

None of the local papers had any real report today on last night's game, and some of the H-W folks would probably just as soon keep it that way. This is not exactly news to write home about if you are a Harvard-Westlake fan or alum. But if you're from Loyola, it's certainly news you want shared with everyone. We don't happen to be either (well, ok, we do have a lot of friends at H-W, so I guess you could call us "fans"). Not much local news coverage of this one, but we did get a box score and some minimal scoring stats and here they are:

H-W jumped out to lead 18-13 at the end of the first quarter, and still led by one at the half, as Loyola outscored H-W in the second quarter 15-11, for a 29-28 halftime score. By the end of the third quarter, Loyola had tied the score, outscoring the Wolverines 14-13, so that at the end of three the score was 42-42. Finally in the fourth quarter, Loyola outscored the Wolverines 20-17 with two of those points coming on the controversial call in the final seconds of the game.

Russell Lakey had 22 points for H-W, John Karavas only had 6 points (both on three pointers) but after making two in a row, he went 0 for 6 from three point range. Todd Kurihawa had 2 points, Alex Minn had 9, Eric Geffner scored twice on inside baskets for 4 points, Dan Kinzer played well but only had two points, and Pat Biggerstaff had only 6, while Alex Holmes had 9. The stats indicate to us that a whole lot of players from H-W didn't either score or play, and perhaps it's time for coach Hilliard to try and re-tool the rotation so that some of the other known shooters who aren't getting much time see a little action. Who knows, it couldn't hurt.

For Loyola, the scoring was led by Mollins with 20, followed by Mora with 11, Hallman with 7, Neil with 9, Althaus with 2, Ewing with 5, Meigs with 6, and Archer with 2 points.

Harvard-Westlake is now 16-6 on the season, and 4-4 in league play for the first time in recent memory, and in real jeopardy of having a losing season as the Wolverines take on Chaminade this Friday night at 7:00, again at home. Loyola, on the other hand, is enjoying success it hasn't seen since the days before Toby Bailey became a Bruin. Loyola is now second in league behind undefeated and perhaps unbeatable Chaminade at 7-2, and has a 17-6 overall record.