sonora beats brea olinda

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Games of Note: Sonora Beats Brea
Olinda 78-77--(January 12, 1998)

Here's another one of those Wednesday games from last week that we didn't get to see. But if we could have been in two places at once, you can bet we'd have been over at the Brea Olinda gym to watch Sonora and Jeffrey Berokoff matchup against Brea Olinda and Ron McMillian in what we heard was just a fantastic non-league game which went down to the wire. From what our friends who reported this one to us told us, it was like a SS CIF Championship final. The gym was packed, the crowd was hot, and the players were intense and fired up. And apparently, when it was over, Sonora celebrated as if they'd just won a State Championship. And why not, these are two of the best teams in Orange County, if not SoCal, and a game which comes down to the final minute, well, it just doesn't get much better than this. The No. 2 ranked Brea-Olinda team against the No. 5 ranked Sonora team.

And from what we heard, Berokoff, who missed the St. Louis Hawaii Tournament because of family commitments, was back in fine form, and put on quite a show, mugging for the crowd, joking with photographers, and rooting the Sonora faithful on. Berokoff hit for 31 points and just out gunned Brea's Ron McMillian, who was held to only 13 points for the first three quarters of the game with double-team defense.

In the first quarter, Berokoff, who will attend SDSU next year, scored Sonora's first seven points and they led 22-13 at the end of the first quarter. Brea came back a bit, and narrowed the gap to only a two point deficit, 40-38 at the half. But Berokoff and Sonora's Gabe Garcia made three three-pointers each to put Sonora back up again at the end of the third by a score of 68-50. In the fourth quarter, McMillian then took over for Brea, scoring 17 points, including three threes. Then with only about 1:00 remaining on the clock, Brea's fine young junior guard, Kyle Dodd hit a 12' jumper and Brea took the lead for the first time in the game, 73-74. But Berokoff wasn't finished, and he drove the lane, hitting a two, to bring Sonora back to 75-74. Then Deric Hilliard was fouled and hit one free throw, and Curtis Levine hit two more to Give Sonora the lead at 78-74. And even though it might have mattered, McMillian went for the four-point play, sinking a long three at the final buzzer, to bring the score to 78-77. Only problem was that no one, and we mean no one, on the Sonora squad was going to get anywhere near him to draw the foul.

So, this was Brea's second loss, and dropped the Wildcats down to 13-2, and improved Sonora's record to 13-3.

The final stats were impressive. Both teams had 10 three pointers. Sonora's threes were scored by Berokoff, who had six, Garcia with 3, and Anderson with 1; Brea's were scored by McMillian, who also had 6 threes, while Kalcevich had 3, and Kyle Dodd had 1.

Overall scoring was impressive too. For Sonora, Berokoff had 31, Hilliard 9, Worthy 13, Vecchione 3, Anderson 7, Levine 3, Abreau 1, and Garcia 11. Brea Olinda was led by McMillian with 30, Dodd with 12, Carlson with 10, Kalcevish with 9, Webster with 7, Mason with 5, and Boehm with 4.

Great game, great players, great battle. Wish I could have been there. Bet you do too.