nogales finals

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Nogales Tournament: California
Beats Canyon Springs for Title--(January 2, 1998)

Just as a little side note, since we've just finished writing about another Sierra League team which won the Covina Tournament this past Tuesday, as Diamond Bar of the Sierra League took the title by defeating La Canada, here's some news of another Sierra League affair. Seems another Sierra League team also had a tourney: Nogales, which is always a strong contender for the league title, hosted the "Nogales Invitational Tournament" this past week, at, of all places, Nogales High School . And Diamond Bar wasn't invited. (Good thing too, because they wouldn't have won the Covina tourney if they'd attended. But that's a different story). The Nogales Tourney didn't receive nearly the coverage of any of those played west of Monterrey Park, and true to tradition, the news kept a virtual blackout on this tourney, except for the odd box score during the early rounds. Nevertheless, we managed to get a brief report on the finals played last Tuesday.

Defying the rule that "he who hosts must win", Nogales was nowhere to be found in the finals of its own tourney.

Last Tuesday's (Dec. 30) Nogales Championship Game was won by California over Canyon Springs, 71-49, in a game which was notable because there was only one three pointer made in the entire game, by California's Roder Montenegro, who also had 19 points to go along with the shot from downtown.

California is a team which plays in the Del Rio League, in the Whiitier area, and features such teams as El Rancho, La Serna, Pioneer, Santa Fe, and Whittier. Canyon Springs plays in the Ivy League out in the Riverside County area with such teams as Arlington H.S, J.W. North H.S. (which played LA Fremont High in the Finals of the Classic Division of the San Diego Nike National Prep Classic played at Cox Arena at San Diego State, losing 72-57), Riverside Poly High, Ramona, and Rubidoux. It's a tough league with some great competition.

California was also paced to the win over Canyon Springs by Randy McKinney with 17 points, while teammate Jaime Moat had 16 and Joe Nichols colleged 12 points. Canyon Springs had only one scorer in double figures, and doing his Gil Arenas/Ruben Douglas imitation was Roderick Johnson who scored 24 points. Actually, if he were playing like Gil or Ruben, he would have scored more than 30, even in the loss. With the win and the Nogales Tournament Championship, California improved to 12-2 on the season.

Congratulations to California, the 1997-98 Nogales Holiday Invitational Tournament Champions from all of us at SoCalHoops.