St. Francis 203

SoCal Prep & High School Report

A St. Francis Perspective Of
Their Win Over H-W On Saturday--(February 3, 1998)

The Los Angeles Times ran a story the other day about Harvard-Westlake's loss on Saturday night to St. Francis at the St. Francis gym. It had a decidely "St. Francis" flavor to it, and just to balance out our coverage of the Mission League a bit, and to at least give credit where credit is due, the St. Francis team just flat-out beat the Wolverines.

When a story line begins with the following, you know it's got a definite "angle" to it. The Times' article started off:

Hoping not to be embarrassed might have been the goal against powerful Harvard-Westlake. After all, the Wolverines had beaten St. Francis High by 42 points last month, and entered the contest as the No. 8th-ranked team in the CIF Southern Section Division III A. That would be enough to scare any team, but this time around, St. Francis came out with purpose, and enough emotion to last a week.

Apparently St. Francis led 41-36 at the half despite being outshot 50.0% to 30.3%. The Golden Knights Richard Fields scored 10 points and Anthony Lavelle had 11 at the half. Harvard-Westlake's sophomore guard Russell Lakey scored 11 points at the intermission, while another sophomore guard, John Karavas, also had 10 points off the bench, and sophomore forward Alex Holmes also had eight for the Wolverines at the half.

On Saturday evening following the game, SoCalHoops didn't get the usual rundown of stats and scoring that our usually reliable sources give us, and they were unusually tight-lipped about what had happened. And it was equally hard to really tell what had happened in the game from the Sunday line score and box scores we saw.

But the Times' article did manage to shed some light on a few things. It seems that the Golden Knights had four starters score in double figures. Of course, St. Francis won 85-77. That much we already knew. We also knew that "Harvard-Westlake doesn't have the services of Jaron and Jason Collins, who are at Stanford" as the Times article reminded.

What we didn't know was that St. Francis, which is now 10-9 overall, and after Saturday's victory and Harvard's loss on Monday to Loyola, is now tied with H-W in league at 4-4, won this game Saturday "because it outhustled Harvard-Westlake, by doing the little things, such as diving for loose balls."

We also had no idea that St. Francis senior guard Eric Alalay, was the epitome of that hustling play, but evidently he was. Apparently he found himself with the ball at midcourt after making a steal. Seeing teammate Richard Fields breaking the other way, Alalay somehow was able to toss him the ball before nearly falling face-first to the floor. Plays like that insured the win for St. Francis, and H-W's lack of hustle (at least according to the Times' article) insured the loss.

"Everyone just played hard," Alalay told the Times. Alalay scored 10 of his 17 points in the second half. "I don't look to score. I do a lot of the little things like setting picks, screening, and going after loose balls."

The fast break basket by Fields after Alalay's steal gave the Golden Knights a 55-45 lead with only 1:17 remaining in the third, but more importantly, it gave the Golden Knights an "emotional boost", according to the Times story, which carried over into the crucial fourth quarter.

"This is just one game," John Jordan, the St. Francis head coach cautioned. "We made key stops at key times. We played intense, and we showed that we can play with these guys."

St. Francis made eight of 11 from the field, and seven of nine from the free throw line in the fourth quarter. "This is our best game by far," said Jordan. "I judge my team's on how hard they play, and they played hard. I'm very proud of them, especially the seniors, who wanted to go out winners."

Harvard-Westlake, on the other hand, which the article reminded us "has won the last two state titles, as well as the last three CIF championships" shot only eight of 20 from the floor in the fourth quarter. That'll do it alright. And the usually aggressive and ball-hungry Eric Geffner, who we understand might have played ill, didn't score at all.

St. Francis' Fields scored another 10 points in the fourth, while Alalay and Lavelle each had another five points in the fourth quarter. Lavelle finished with 21 points and 12 rebounds in the game. Fields finished with 25 points in the game Saturday, and he was evidently motivated to play hard by a tough loss to Loyola (65-57) last Thursday, and by the first defeat suffered at the hands of H-W. " We're a young team, but we're not supposed to lose to a team by 42 points, " Fields told the Times.

Ok, so now we understand what happened. We just wish H-W had understood it too before they played Loyola for the second time yesterday.