montclair tuesday

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Game Notes: Montclair Prep
Beats Pacific Hills--(January 22, 1998)

On Tuesday night, Montclair Prep of Van Nuys beat Pacific Hills (yes, the same school that Monica Lewinsky, the latest FOB, attended before she went to work at the White House--she's the one who's now getting President Clinton in a bit of hot water, and we don't mean a jacuzzi either) 69-56, in a nonleague game Tuesday night at Montclair Prep. Pacific Hills used to be called Bel Air Prep, and it's a small school with an enrollment of about 200 students total. The tuition is comparable to other private small schools. How much is it? Too much if you have to ask.

But they've got a pretty good basketball team. Pacific Hills plays in the Delphic League against such schools as Brentwood, Campbell Hall, Crossroads, Faith Baptist, Landmark West, and Whitney. They're not a "power" school in the same vein as Dominguez or Westchester, but they have won four of the last five Division V-A titles. Pacific Hills is 15-4 on the season, even with the loss Tuesday. Not bad. Not bad at all.

And Montclair Prep is pretty good too. Former State Champions and State Finalists (i.e. runners-up). They've got some great players, including Michah Cohen who is ranked currently 6th in assists in Southern Section CIF Valley Region, averaging 5.8 assists per game (110 in 19 games).

Actually, according to the lasted (January 22, 1998) CIF Southern Section Coaches Polls, Montclair is rated No. 1 in Division V-AA, and Pacific Hills (which is now in the same Division), is rated No. 2. A pretty good matchup.

Montclair also has the 6th ranked highest scorer in the region in Rocky Steryo, who is averaging 22.6 points per game (430 points in 19 games).

And Montclair is newly ranked as the No. 7 team (up from No. 8) by the LA Times, and they're ranked No. 5 (up from No.7) by the Daily News.

Montclair is a team which might challenge for the State Division V championship. And so is Pacific Hills.

But even great teams and great players have terrible games. Sometimes the bad times only last for a quarter, sometimes a half, and sometimes the whole game. Sometimes it goes on longer. Then they're no longer "great" but "formerly great".

On Tuesday night, Montclair avoided acquiring the "formerly" appellation, and remained a great team, despite a dismal first half by their scoring leader Rocky Steryo, who in the game against Pacific Hills had only scored 9 points. Not bad if you're anyone else, and actually right on the money to maintain his average, provided he duplicated it in the second half.

But Steryo and the coaches thought that those eleven points, or rather the way they occurred, were not really up to snuff. In fact they considered Steryo's shooting to have been terrible during the first half, and Steryo was told so, in no uncertain terms by Howard Abrams during the halftime.

Steryo responded in the second half by scoring 18 more points, a good game for most kids, on his way to knocking down a total of 26 points for the game.

Montclair Prep with the win improved to 17-3, and now has an 11 game winning streak. But during this game, they wanted to prove that they deserved to be ranked No. 1 ranking in the State in their division. And they wanted to prove that Pacific Hills was truly No. 2.

The LA Times quoted Montclair senior forward Kevin Bentley as saying of the Pacific Hills players: "They came into our house, talking trash. We came out pointing to our state champion banner and state finalist banner. Basically what we told them is we're taking the state in '98." In fact, Bently tried to do a lot of the work himself, by scoring 13 points and 11 rebounds. But he also got into a little bit of trouble with the refs several times because he was so fired up about the game. On three separate occasions, the refs had to warn Bentley that they would call a T, or at least a foul, if he didn't back off of Conrad Adamczak, a PH player he was guarding. At one point, Adamczak, who scored 18 points, said to Bentley before the ball was even in play " 'Good luck with football because you shouldn't be on the court,' " Bentley, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound linebacker who committed to play football for Northwestern on Tuesday, knew he was doing his job, because he was getting to Adamczak.

And if the first half was miserable for Montclair, the second half proved that they just might be State Championship material this year.

Montclair tied the game twice in the first half, but never led, and in fact they were trailing 34-31 at the half. With the exception of Steryo, the team as a whole was not shooting that badly, and their defense was also working on Pacific Hills. They shifted from a 2-3 zone defense to a man-to-man coverage, and that seemed to shut off the easy baskets which Pacific had been getting in the first half. And more importantly it began to frustrate the PH players, including Conrad Adamczak, who was guarded by a very aggressive and almost belligerant Bentley in the second half.

But it was up to Steryo, the team's leading scorer averaging 22.6 points a game, to bring the Mounties back into the game. "Coach Abrams was telling me 'You've got to score more' during the half, and that I have to step up in big games," In the third quarter, Steryo did just that, hitting a baseline driving layup early in the third to give the Mounties the lead for the first time in the game 35-34. And while Pacific Hills did manage to again regain the lead briefly on a tip in by Adamczak, consecutive three-pointers by Steryo gave Montclair Prep the lead for good at 41-38, with 4:10 remaining in the third. Steryo's second three-pointer of the period ignited a 12-4 run, and Montclair stretched it to a 50-42 lead to start the fourth quarter. Steryo hit on six of seven three-pointers in the second half, including his first five attempts, and chipped in five assists. Jed Hall also scored 14 points in the game.

Montclair is a team which can and might just take it all the way this season. We'll be watching.