socal classic details

The SoCal Classic (referred to by some local papers as the "SoCalHoops Classic", even though we aren't officially connected with the event), featured seven top games yesterday. As we noted, a family medical emergency prevented us from attending yesterday (and thank you to everyone who noticed when we wrote about the medical issue. . . yes, everything is now stable and under control. . . ), but that didn't stop us from finding various sources who actually know what happened. We haven't been able to find any box scores (geez, are we going to miss Louis Johnson at the LB P-T, who always covered big events like this and managed to get the boxes, even for the teams he wasn't expressly covering for the paper. . .), but James Melroy and Kirby Lee of the Long Beach Press Telegram (who covered just about every game except the Dominguez v. Roman Catholic game), Al Balderas of the Orange County Register (who covered Mater Dei and Santa Margarita) and Kevin Chavez of the Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley News (who tangentially covered Pasadena, which also played later Saturday evening in the second of two games of the day at the La Canada-Flintridge "Holiday Classic" third place game). And the Daily Breeze? Well, you'd think they might have covered the Serra game, but noooo.

Game 1: Compton 61, Serra 50--Compton played on Friday night in a Moore League game against Long Beach Poly, which they lost badly, and the Tarbabes were looking for a little vengance and a return to form, and they had less than 12 hours to regroups and come back. The Tarbabes (14-5) didn't have any difficulty though in coming back, and they were led by Jeremiah Thompson (6'-2" Sr. SG) with 17 points, 10 of those in the first half. Serra was, as usual, led by Aerick Sanders (6'-9" Sr. C/F) who has signed with San Diego State, and Chief had 19 points. Serra's Doyle Cole (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) had 12. David Dixon didn't play for Compton, and the word is that he may be out for the rest of the season. Why? We don't know, but the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported that his absence was due to an "undisclosed administrative matter," and we just don't have any idea what that means. Possibly ineligible, either for grades or some transfer error, but we're just guessing. Again, as with the rest of these games, no box score, and no stats available to the media. . .

Game 2: Mater Dei 87, University (Irvine) 63-- Thank goodness for the OC Register, because at least they know how to print and record a box score. So, just to give them credit for this, here's the box, which is generally more illuminating than anything we can add to it:

University: Christoph 11, Lawrence 29, Dale 10, Garey 11, Tran2
Mater Dei: Strawberry 24, Porter 6, Bozeman 16, Webster 8, Scoggin 9, Schaen 11, Hadden 6, Baker 3, Leinert 4.

University	11	17	19	16	--63
Mater Dei	24	21	19	23	--87

Three point shots: Uni--11 (Garey 4, Lawrence 4, Christoph 3); Mater Dei: 1 (Scoggin).
Records: MD 24-1, Uni 14-8

Now, here's what we know about those stats and points: Harrison Schean (6'-8" Fr. F) had 16 rebounds according to a trusted observer and played a great game, as did Mikey Strawberry (6'-4" So. SG/SF) who scored 16 of those 24 points in the second half, and Cedric Bozeman with his 16. Again, no Jamal Sampson (6'-11" Jr. C), who is reported to be suffering from a bout of hepatitis. For University, Andy Lawrence's 29 points was a game high effort, and Jason Garey's three point shooting was critical to keeping Uni in the game, but when Mater Dei went on an 18-4 run in the first half after three minutes of play, University was never able to catch up.

Game 3: Pasadena 55, LA Washington 34 -- We don't know a lot about this game, but we do know that Pasadena's Doug Thomas (6'-9" Jr. F) scored 17 points including some really hot dunks and slams, and this was a pretty easy win for the Bulldogs, who played on Friday night, when they routed Pacific League rival Glendale 82-57, and then later in the day, they drove across town to La Canada High, where they played in the third place game of the "La Canada Holiday Classic." Remember that December tournament? Well, it wasn't over in December. . . for reasons known only to a select few and which we can't fathom, the tournament is played in two "regionals" during December, and the winners and runners-up don't get together for the overall tourney final until January, yesterday to be precise. Pasadena is now 18-6, and is building up a head of steam as the pre-playoff stretch run in Pacific League looms in the next two weeks. As for the LA Washington Generals, we don't have a clue about how they performed, and not a single reporter was willing to write anything about them, which is a shame because at least they have two really good players on the roster in Tyrone Riley and Antoine Parker.

Game 4: Santa Margarita 60, Verbum Dei 53--Again, thanks to the OC Register, we know what happened, and we have a box score:

Verbum Dei: Jamal Dean 14, Adams 10, Watkins 17, Huff 2, Burlinson 7, Jones 3
Santa Margarita: Smith 13, Socci 17, Rohe 2, Collins 15, Stacey 3, Tancredi 10.

Verbum Dei	8	17	7	21	--53
Santa Margarita	23	15	6	16	--60

Three point shots: Verbum Dei 6 (Watkins 4, Dean 2); SM 6 (Socci 3, Smith 2, Collins)
Fouled out: Lay (V)
Technicals: Verbum Dei bench
Records: Verbum Dei (11-11), Santa Margarita (19-4).

Santa Margarita built a 25-8 lead early in the second quarter, but according to the story in the Register this morning, seemed "helpless to stop Verbum Dei's second half surge. Verbum Dei cut its deficit to 55-50 with 48 seconds left in the fourth quarter before Santa Margarita put the game away at the free throw line."

Game 5: LB Poly 87, Richmond (CA) 45--We're not sure whose idea it was for Richmond to play Long Beach Poly, but next time, the Richmond Oilers ought to come with real uniforms; according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "The Oilers' red jerseys bore only numbers with no school name." Of course that probably runs counter to everything that Richmond coach Ken Carter believes, since he's a proponent of civic pride, team building and is the same guy who held his entire team out last season because one or two players' grades fell below the team standard. We also hear that Mike Miller (formerly of WestCoastHoops) has been working on a screenplay on the team and coach Carter, so maybe it will be more entertaining than what they showed Long Beach Poly last night. And regardless of what the uniforms looked like, this was basically just a workout for the Jackrabbits, who the night before had beaten Compton in Moore League game. Poly (20-2) jumped out to an early lead, and Wesley Stokes hit for 16 points and 10 assists, while Joe Travis (6'-8" Sr. PF) who has yet to sign, collected 14 points and 5 rebounds in less than 15 minutes of play. Mercedes Lewis (6'-6"So. SF/SG), one of the best pure players on the team hit a career high 15 points and made 7 of 8 from the field. Poly jumped out to a commanding 15-1 lead and they just were never challenged, even though Richmond got as close as 19-13 early in the second quarter, but then Poly quickly extended the lead with another 11-0 run in just the last few minutes of the second quarter. Others scoring for Poly were Ramaan Shotwell (5'-11" Sr. G) who opened the second half with a three pointer, and then in the second half, Poly ran off another 25-3 run, and led by as many as 45 points, finally deciding to call a halt to the onslaught with the final 42 point margin of victory. Poly is now 20-2, and again poised for a deep run in the Division I-AA playoffs, and this time, they won't be challenged by Artesia. We'd look for Eisenhower, Fontana, and a couple of others to be the only serious threats, and Poly looks pretty much the team to beat in the Division I-AA race.

Game 6: Artesia 95, Washington Union (Fresno) 56-- How many times will it take for Washington Union to get beaten by large margins before they figure out that DeShawn Stevenson really should be the primary option on offense. Admitttedly, the top 5 consensus national prospect, who has signed with Kansas, did manage to score 22 of the total 56 points , but still, we watched the tape of this game and he was sooooo open so many times that he never saw the ball, it was almost criminal. Sure Stevenson likes to jack the ball up from way outside the three point line, but hey, we've seen him make 8 in a game, and then score from inside as well. . . No offense, but against a team like Artesia, even if Washington Union managed to hang with the Pioneers for a while, there was no way they could remain close without having DeShawn take over, at least on offense. For Artesia, Jack Martinez scored 17 points, and Amaury Fernandes had 26 points and 18 rebounds. We were also impressed with Ryan Reyes (6'-1" Jr. SG/PG) again who had a number of nice drives to the basket. The rest of the Artesia guys also played well, including Andre Hazel (6'-0" Sr. PG) who has signed with Nevada Reno, and while we saw some excellent defense from him, we're not prepared to go as hog wild as did the LB Press-Telegram which proclaimed this morning in the headline "Hazel Goes Nuts in Stopping Stevenson." While the box and one was effective, getting 22 points in a game isn't really like Stevenson was shut down completely, and the real failure of Washington Union was that the rest of the guys didn't step up and finish the shots available to them. Still, taking nothing away from Hazel, perhaps holding Stevenson to only 22 points is a pretty big accomplishment. . .

We've already reported what we know about the Dominguez v. Roman Catholic game, so we won't repeat that again. Still, if you want to check out the game, and the Artesia game, it's on cable again tonight, on Fox Sports West 2, with Artesia airing at 10:00 p.m. and Dominguez v. Roman Catholic at 11:30 p.m.