pacleague

SoCal High School & Prep Report

High School League Preview: Southern Section
Pacific League --(January 12, 1998)

There are actually two Pacific Leagues. One is a City Section League. That's not the one we're writing about here. Nope. This one is the Southern Section Pacific League, featuring Muir, Hoover, Glendale, Crescenta Valley, Pasadena, and Arcadia.

The Pacific League favorite this year has to be Hoover High, which is coached by Kirt Kohlmeier, and the Tornadoes are looking for their second Pacific League title in the last three years. Hoover is currently ranked No. 10 in the LA Times (aka the Sondheimer) Poll, and was, at least as of last week, 10-5 on the season. After Friday night's victory in the league opener against Glendale, they were 11-5. Kohlmeier says that this is one of the better, taller teams that he's had in his 19 years of coaching, and he's expecting big things from them. In fact, three of the starting five are 6'-5" or taller. Among the starters is Mark Hull (6'-6" Sr. SG/PF), Kris Rubio (5'-8" Sr. PG), and Zareh Avedian (6'-5" Jr. F). Hull is probably the most versatile, explosive player in the league, and has increased his productivity each year since his sophomore season. He's currently averaging 27.3 points per game and 12.5 rebounds. Rubio is averaging 4.5 assists as a starter this season. Avedian is also among the leaders of this team, averaging 10.7 points per game, and 9.1 rebounds in the first 15 games this season. While Hoover only finished 6-4 in league last year, Kohlmeier believes they can go undefeated in league play this year if they stay focused.

In the opener on Friday night, they beat Glendale 62-40, and Mark Hull had 19 points and 15 boards. Zzareh Avedian added 14 points and 20 rebounds. Not too shabby. Glendale, on the other hand, shot terribly, and hit only 6 of 27 in the first half, and 8 of 28 from the field in the second half. The absolute worst point for Glendale was in the second quarter, when they missed all three of their free throws, and they were outscored 12-2 in the quarter.

Hoover will have its work cut out for it if it is going to knock off defending league champion Muir, a perennial favorite. Last year Muir finished 9-1 in league play and 20-7 overall. This year, they are not particularly blessed with size, and John Parker (6'-4" Jr. C) is one of their bigger men, but that's not stopping him in the scoring category: He's currently averaging 20 points per game and 11.2 rebounds. Joe Bakhoum, a senior guard for Muir is also pouring in 11 points per game and collecting five assists a game. Junior guard Jason Bonwell completes the triumvirate for Muir, and he's averaging 10 points a game as the sixth man off the bench for Muir. This may not be Muir's year, but so far, they're doing pretty well at 11-4 on the season, better than Hoover, and they return two starters.

In third position going into league play would have to be Pasadena High, which last year was 8-2 in league play and 16-10 overall. They are currently 10-8, and have three returning starters from last year, and currently have four players averaging in double figures in scoring. They are coached by Tim Tucker, and as he put it "Any guy can lead us on any given night". Among those leaders is Brook Ewing (6'-7" Jr. C), Clayton Coleman (6'-5" Jr. F) and George DeJohnette (6'-1" Jr. G). And as you'll see from reading about Crescenta Valley, Pasadena pretty easily handled them in the league opener last Friday night, beating them 77-51, improving to 10-8 overall, and 1-0 in league.

In probable fourth position, but a team which could finish much higher if they stay healthy and fast is Crescenta Valley, which is currently 10-7 on the season, and which has enough talent to challenge for the playoffs, but is somewhat vertically challenged: They have only one player taller than 6'-0". But they are a team which can score in bunches, provided forward Alex Tima, who averaged 10.1 points and 9.6 rebounds last season gets healthy. This year, he's been fighting off injuries and has started in only one game. Dereck Dawson, at 6'-2" is the tallest player on the team and he's proving it too with scoring, averaging 15.5 points per game this season. CV was on a roll last year, but lost to Hoover, ending a 12 game streak of consecutive playoff appearances last year. This could be the year that CV plays spoiler to Hoover, but we wouldn't bet on it. And the league opener against Pasadena proved that CV is in a rebuilding year, as they lost 77-51 on Friday (1/9/97). So much for the "spoiler" theory. But there's still time.

Glendale High has several players which might be promising and they return Ronald Baghomian (6'-3" Sr. C), and Kirkior Karamanoukian (5'-8" Jr. G). Moving up from the JV is Eddie Karibyan, who hit the game winning shot in the Hart Tournament to give Glendale a win over Bakersfield in a pool play game. Glendale is currently 8-8 on the season, and has vastly improved over last year's dismal 9-16 overall record, and hopefully they'll improve on their 2-8 league record from last year.

Finally, don't look for Arcada, which also finished 2-8 last year in league to be making any huge strides this year. While they finished 6-19 overall, they are now just 5-10, and on a pace to repeat. Arcadia has a few players taller than 6'-0", Dereck Epps (6'-2" Jr. F/SG) Sean Fang (6'-4" Sr. C), and Oliver Chi (6'-3" Sr. F). They also feature Dionse Cox (5'-11" Jr. PG) who is very smooth, accomplished and has all the tools to be a fine small point. I really like this team actually, and have trouble picking them to finish last in the league, but honestly, they haven't really gelled yet this season, and are having tremendous difficulty against teams half their size. Admittedly they got hammered pretty good by Ruben Douglas and Bell-Jeff during the Arroyo Tournament, but that was about a month ago, and they've now had time to work out the bugs, and we'd actually pick them to finish much higher, and possibly make the playoffs.

And even though we really like the personnel on Arcadia, Friday night's league opening contest (1/9/97) proved that Muir is a far better team, as they just destroyed Arcadia, 74-33. Looking once again like the team to beat, and coming off a disappointing upspet loss on Wednesday to Duarte, the Muir Mustangs improved to 12-5 and 1-0 in league play, while the Arcadia Apaches dropped to 5-12 and 0-1. In fact, this game was so bad for Arcadia, that they didn't score until there was only a little more than 2:00 remaining in the first quarter, and they scored only 5 points in the first period. Believe it or not, the game actually deteriorated for Arcadia, and they trailed 41-19 at the half, following a 19-2 scoring run by Muir. How bad was it for Arcadia? How about shooting only 13 of 55 from the floor. Even Dionse Cox got shut down, and was double-teamed all night in the league opener. He did manage to hit for 11 points, and was the only Arcadia player in double figures. Virtually everyone though scored for Muir, and there wasn't one scorer with less than 4 points. Parker had 12, House had 11, Rowe had 10, and Washington hit for 8.

The Pacific League is interesting this year, and you won't want to miss the action.