hwloyola

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Harvard-Westlake v. Loyola: The King
is Dead. Long Live the King--(January 12, 1998)

Well, here's a news flash. It's about 9:54 pm on January 12, 1998 as we write this, and the Harvard-Westlake streak of 29 straight league victories (not 27 as was reported by the Times last week) has now come to an end. We all knew it would come sooner or later, but there were many partisans in the house at Loyola High tonight in downtown LA who were hoping it would be later (or sooner, depending upon their loyalties).

Well, tonight, with Harvard-Westlake's All-American point guard Victor Munoz standing on the sidelines with crutches after hurting his knee in last week's league opener against St. Francis (in which HW dominated, winning 89-47, with Russell Lakey hitting for 18 points, and 6 steals) Harvard-Westlake went down to defeat, 69-64.

But they didn't go down without a fight, and the Wolverines managed to cut it to only a two point game with less then a minute to play after trailing by as many as 18 points at the half, and down by 17 at the end of three. But time was not on the Wolverine's side, and they were unable to score in the last 50 seconds, dropping their first league game in more than three years.

Our sources tell us that Loyola initially came out double and sometimes triple-teaming Russell Lakey, the fine sophomore point guard, and without Munoz, who is expected to be out until at least next week (he just had an MRI today, and is definitely not expected to play in the Alemany game, and possibly not for the Chaminade game), Lakey had difficulty getting going. In fact, no one (either for Loyola or H-W) was really on fire in this game during the first quarter, and the score at the end of the first period was only 14-9. But by the end of the second quarter, Loyola, largely on the fine shooting of Ryan Mollins, Darryl Meigs and Robert Archer, had opened up an 18 point lead, and Harvard-Westlake trailed 38-20 at the half.

While Lakey was cold for most of the first half, going only 3 for 14 from three point range, Harvard-Westlake played just a furious second half, and Lakey still managed to heat up enough to collect 24 points overall in the game. Alex Minn had a great second half as well, scoring 16 points. But even after pulling to within two points, the poor outside shooting is the most telling stat from this game. In the first half H-W managed to get off only 23 shots, and went 0-6 from three point range; in the second half, the Wolverines took 25 three pointers, making only 6.

If there was a bright spot for Harvard-Westlake in the loss, it was that everyone who suited up played. Alex Minn had 11 points and played well inside. Eric Geffner though struggled a bit, and he only had 4 points, one field goal and two free throws, but played great defense. Todd Kurihawa had 7 points in the losing effort.

Our source at the game was conveying this from a cellular phone, and the connection was not the best, and thus we weren't able to get complete stats. But suffice it to say, this was a bitterly disappointing loss for Harvard-Westlake, and a terrific win for Loyola, which is now 3-0 in league play, having defeated Crespi 53-48 in their second league game last week. The win improves Loyola's record to 12-5 overall, and drops Harvard Westlake to 1-1 in league play, and 13-3 overall.

We'll have the full details, including full (and corrected if necessary) stats in the morning. But for now, we thought you should know.

The king is dead. Long live the king.